The “Sunday Night Football” turned “Thursday Night Football” fixture dismissed criticism of his and Tony Dungy’s less-than-enthusiastic description of the Jaguars’ epic 31-30 victory, which featured everything from a 27-point comeback to a walk-off field goal.
“Read some comments that we didn’t sound excited enough,” he said via text to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand after some platitudes about the broadcast. “Internet compost! You know me as well as anyone — no screaming, no yelling, no hollering. It’s TELEVISION! Ellipses and captions are [sufficient] when pictures tell the story. I’m not doing a game for over-the-top YouTube hits.”
MORE: Why were Michaels and Dungy calling Jaguars vs. Chargers?
“I thought the energy was much better once Jax made it a game. 27-0 makes it difficult to make it sound like more than it is,” he admitted. “One of the things that I think makes Tony good is that he doesn’t overtalk and load it up with unneeded blather. He’s measured, but almost everything he says has relevance and poignancy. A lot of folks who understand this industry are annoyed with the over-the-top yelling that makes a game sound like an offshoot of talk radio. I’m in that corner, but there are others who obviously think otherwise.”
Michaels’ views are in line with what he thought of his Thursday night games with Kirk Herbstreit this year.
“We’re making the most of it,” he said of “Thursday Night Football,” in a Q&A last week with Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. “I mean, you just can’t oversell something. Do you want me to sell you a 20-year-old Mazda? That’s what you’re asking me to do. I can’t sell you a used car.”
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The ire against Michaels’ calls continued from Saturday into Sunday night, with a parody emerging of what the Bengals’ go-ahead 98-yard touchdown would have sounded like as called by Michaels and Dungy.
MORE: Bengals survive Ravens’ upset bid after producing go-ahead scoop-and-score
Michaels’ call of Riley Patterson’s 36-yard game-winner was stepped on by a flag, but when it was confirmed the penalty was on the Chargers, his continued lack of enthusiasm irked viewers.
