Whatever you want to say about Al Michaels as a commentator these days, he’s a broadcasting legend in the industry and one of the best of all-time. So he probably has a little bit more leeway than announcers who weren’t born yet when he started calling games. That was certainly the case on this week’s Thursday Night Football game when Al was willing to call out referee Clete Blakeman by name for dominating proceedings between the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks.
In the third quarter, the Seahawks were called for five defensive penalties on one drive, leading Michaels to quip that he and partner Kirk Herbstreit should take the rest of the night off and go out. Presumably there would be no vegetables on Michaels’ late night menu.
Al Michaels, like everyone at home, had enough of seeing referee Clete Blakeman during the Seahawks-Cowboys game. pic.twitter.com/vp0MqisbHM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 1, 2023
Al Michaels has been under fire for his less than enthusiastic calls over the past few years, but it’s nice to know that he still cares enough to not want to see a parade of yellow flags all over the field. The game did set a dubious kind of record for the number of penalties coupled with the offensive success seen in the Cowboys’ shootout 41-35 victory.
Before today, no team in NFL history had ever had 125+ penalty yards in a game without punting.
Both the Cowboys and Seahawks did that tonight.
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) December 1, 2023
All totaled there were 19 combined penalties on both teams for a combined 257 penalty yards. Thankfully, the game itself aside from the penalties was quite entertaining. If Michaels saw that many flags for some of the other stinkers he’s seen on Thursday Night Football, he may have followed up on his joke to walk out of the broadcast booth not just for the evening, but for good.
