An interesting theory on the reason Al Michaels was taken off NFL playoff duty by NBC has emerged following the surprising development.
Earlier this week, The New York Post reported that the veteran broadcaster will miss out on the network’s coverage of the postseason, with Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth to call three of two of the three games on the schedule, while Noah Eagle and Todd Blackledge will call the other.
The news is said to have hit the 79-year-old by surprise, though there are claims of a fractured relationship between him and NBC.
Michaels has been getting a lot of criticism over his drab descriptions of some of the most exciting plays in recent seasons. However, some fans believe his exclusion from playoff coverage is a result of something he said about Taylor Swift several weeks ago.
Swift, who is now dating Travis Kelce, has been getting a lot of attention during NFL games and, speaking to Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina in October, Michaels seemed critical of all the coverage the singer was attracting while discussing how Amazon Prime will present her.
“What we’re gonna do tonight, everything in moderation,” he was quoted as saying. “Our crew talked about it this morning. You can’t make a sideshow the show. The vast majority of the audience are tuning in to watch a football game. There are people, I don’t know how many, it could be a sizable number, but it’s certainly not a majority, that if you trained the camera on her all night long, they’d be satisfied with that. This is not what we’re doing to do.
“There might be an appropriate shot or a couple. I don’t know what the number is going to be. If Kelce scores six touchdowns, who the hell knows what we’re going to do. But for the most part, just in moderation. The game is still the important element here, by far. That’s our thought. After that, you sort of make it, one of my favorite words, farcical.”
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Michaels’ comments were hardly out of place. Still, some fans believe it has everything to do with NBC’s decision to keep him away from the playoffs.
