Al Michaels really has had it with the Thursday night games.
The longtime play-by-play man made the jump from calling Sunday Night Football on NBC to Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. To the surprise of no one, the caliber of games now called by Michaels has dropped precipitously.
He hasn’t hidden from that, either. Most weeks he sounds completely apathetic, and while it’s hard to really get jazzed about calling games featuring bad teams on short weeks, that shouldn’t have been a shock to him.
But the latest thing Michaels took issue with had nothing to do with the play on the field. In the first quarter of Thursday’s game between the 5-7 Raiders and 3-9 Rams, Michaels was annoyed by the PA announcer. And in grumbling about it, Michaels took an indirect jab at Rams fans.
"You have a PA announcer here who incessantly screams 'whose house?'" Michaels bemoaned after noting that it seemed there were more Raiders fans than Rams at SoFi Stadium. "I hate it, he wants them to say 'Rams house,' but as far as the Raiders are concerned, well this is kind of their Airbnb."
Chirping the Rams for not having many fans is some pretty low-hanging fruit, and it’s hard to blame the PA announcer for not phoning it in even though the Rams have been bad.
Further, PA announcers scream stuff all the time at games and in varying situations. It’s literally their job. Sure, it can be a little over the top or annoying at times, but that’s part of going to a pro sports event.
It sounds like Michaels just wants the PA guy to be as miserable as he is at these games.
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