Al Michaels has been a fixture of prime-time NFL football since joining Monday Night Football in 1986. He hopes to continue that run into 2026, with Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football.
“I feel really good right now,” Michaels recently told Jimmy Traina of SI.com. “It’s been a good year, a lot of fun. And as I say, I I love the people I’m working with. So if I had to make a decision today, I would want to come back.”
The reality is that the decision isn’t his alone.
“It’s a two-way street here,” Michaels said. “They can tell me, ‘Hey, we got to move on. It’s time to make a transition,’ all that. I don’t know, that could happen. But as of the moment, as we sit here on this mid-November afternoon, I feel really good, still love what I do. And, again, I work with a tremendous crew. So, yeah, I think at this moment in time, yeah, I would like to continue, yes.”
Michaels, who turned 81 on November 12, still sounds like he always did. For millions, his voice has a familiarity that brings comfort and continuity to the football-watching experience.
Whenever someone asks whether a given announcer is “good,” I say there’s a handful of all-time greats (Michaels, Pat Summerall, John Madden, and in his own unique way Howard Cosell) and there’s everyone else. Michaels is the last of the voices in the category other than “everyone else.”
And, as it is with so many things that we have become accustomed to, we won’t truly appreciate that voice until it’s gone.
