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Our NFL Sundays used to be a lot cooler, didn’t they?
We’d get Joe Buck (who I think is the GOAT) and Troy Aikman, two of the best in the business, calling the biggest afternoon game each week, where just the sound of their voices let us know that what we were watching was a very important matchup and one worth watching until the end.
Then after a short break we’d get Al Michaels on NBC and we knew for the last three hours of NFL action we’d be hearing an announcing legend taking us home to end another long day of watching football from the couch while absolutely pounding carbs and trying not to think about Monday.
Now all three of those guys have new jobs and I don’t mean any disrespect to their Sunday replacements, because those guys are good, too, but things just aren’t the same and it’s a shame Michaels, Buck and Aikman now far too often call some of the worst games of the week.
Tonight, Michaels will be back on Amazon calling the Raiders-Rams game with Kirk Herbstreit. The Thursday night games are routinely bad matchups and this one is no different, with both teams under .500 and mostly out of the playoff picture. Plus, Michaels and Herbstreit haven’t had the best chemistry this year, which has made some of these games even more hard to watch.
Buck and Aikman now call Monday Night Football on ESPN and while some of those matchups have been pretty good, a bunch of them – like most of last week’s Saints-Bucs game until Tom Brady did the impossible again – have been pretty ugh. I’m looking at you, Steelers-Colts in Week 13.
Also, this week Buck and Aikman have Patriots-Cardinals, which isn’t the best, and then Rams-Packers in Week 15, which is very bad, and Chargers-Colts in Week 16, which is far from great. They do close the season with Bills-Bengals, though, which could have huge AFC playoff implications so my fingers are crossed for that one.
These three announcers used to get arguably the two biggest games each week. And if SNF didn’t have the best game late in the season the NFL would flex in the bigger game in and Michaels would be there to call it. Now he’s spending this season in random spots like a rainy Falcons-Panthers game in Charlotte last month.
Mike Tirico has done a good job as Michaels’ replacement on SNF and continues to be in the group of best announcers that we have in all of sports.
Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen have become a very good listen as the No. 1 team on Fox.
It’s just been rough to hear Michaels, Buck, and Aikman calling a bunch of games that really don’t matter, especially as the season heads down the homestretch.
Quick hits: NFL picks against the spread… Latest NFL mock draft… XFL uniforms ranked… And more.
David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
– NFL Week 14 is here and so are our picks against the spread.
– Christian D’Andrea’s latest NFL mock draft is out and it has Byrce Young going No. 1 to the Texans and then has the Bears picking a Georgia star at No. 2.
– Charles Curtis ranks the new XFL uniforms from worst to best.
– Caroline Darney looks at everything we’ve learned in the first month of men’s college basketball.
