Al Michaels heard the criticism, and he remains committed to not overselling NFL fans on bad games

Al Michaels will continue to call it like he sees it. The legendary sports broadcaster understands he caught some backlash for his lack of enthusiasm during some NFL games last year, but don’t expect his attitude to change during a bad game.

There’s no sense in beating around the bush, the NFL produced some serious clunkers during Thursday Night Football last season. As a result, Michaels — who worked with Kirk Herbstreit on Amazon Prime Video last year — never got too excited behind the microphone.

But he’s not going to oversell a bad product.

“I thought a lot of people didn’t understand what was going on,” Michaels said on The Pat McAfee Show. “I have a great feel I think since as a six-year-old, watching games, being a fan, I can feel where a game is. And I’m not going to oversell a game to you. That’s wrong. I can’t come on the air yelling, hollering, and screaming. Where do you go from there? And people expect me to be in rhythm with the game.

Michaels says trying to force excitement during a game can be insulting to the fans. And, for that reason, he doesn’t plan to change his broadcast style.

"I feel like I've had a great feel for the game since I was six years old..

I think I can always feel what the fan feels and I'm always trying to reflect that"

Al Michaels #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/adtSEjB8uh

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) May 19, 2023

“It’s just a matter of, a lot of the games we had weren’t very good, so if I didn’t sound excited…If I sounded too excited, people would go, ‘Oh, he’s just trying to sell this crap.’ No! Can’t do that and I won’t do that. I think that’s been my M.O. for almost four decades now.”

Al Michaels looking forward to 2023 TNF slate

You might think that NFL’s Thursday Night Football coverage in 2022 might have Michaels considering retirement. That’s not the case, though. The sports broadcasting legend looks forward to the upcoming season.

He says the league put together a much more intriguing slate of games for the season ahead.

“Absolutely!” Michaels said to SI’s Jimmy Traina. “Love the way we come out of the gate. Three ‘A’ grade games. Two Aaron Rodgers games. Baltimore-Cincinnati, another good one. League did us a solid.

“I was raring to go the minute I saw the whole slate. Already thinking of storylines for each game, of which there is no shortage.”

So, hopefully, that means Michaels won’t be yawning through too many games during the 2023 season. And maybe fans won’t be too critical of the play-by-play guy for not bringing the juice.