The longtime duo of Al Michaels (left) and Chris CollinsworthPhoto: Getty Images
Chris Collinsworth didn’t need a theme, a note-taking app or seven Instagram slides to say goodbye to his longtime TV partner Al Michaels. He was short and gave people what they wanted and I’m sure Michaels chuckled when he saw it.
The post has only nine words, an exclamation mark, and an eight-second video. In this video, Michaels calls out to Collinsworth, who last appears in the frame next to him at Super Bowl LVI.
To be honest, at first I felt like Michaels almost dropped the call. The reason why the slide is so beloved is because he and Collinsworth play it every week with perfect equanimity. It was 2018 when the Sunday Night Football team finally noticed that Collinsworth was in the frame every week. While the social team absolutely plays it up, Michaels and Collinsworth know the audience is waiting for it and will never admit it. Then one Sunday night they might shock Collinsworth’s world slips into the frame from the other side and behaves as if nothing out of the ordinary.
For this final intro, Michaels decided to break the fourth wall and said, “Chris, come here.” I was a little disappointed, but Collinsworth was too strong and had to untangle the microphone wire when he came into the frame. The fact that their last slide together wasn’t perfect turned out to be a nice touch and made it unforgettable.
It was well known that the 2021 NFL season would be Michaels’ last with Sunday Night Football and NBC. Mike Tirico played roleplaying duties quite frequently last season, and he will be returning to the role on a regular basis for the first time since he aired on ESPN Monday Night Football. However, Michaels had no desire to end his career in the booth, so the legend was the latest to cash in on a major new contract in this new environment for NFL broadcasters.
Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported yesterday that Michaels has agreed to a three-year contract to be the player for Thursday Night’s game on Amazon Football. The deal is reportedly worth somewhere around the $15 million a year that Joe Buck recently received from ESPN for his Monday Night Football challenge. Michaels will join Kirk Herbstraight in the booth on Thursdays.
Watching NFL football next season will require adjustment. Buck and Troy Aikman would no longer work on every other Dallas Cowboys game for Fox, and Herbstraight would call NFL games. What’s next? Is Robert Griffin III going to take over Todd Blackledge’s Taste of the City segments? If we’re going to have this whole shift of broadcast groups, let’s at least get Gus Johnson out of Saturday at noon. We don’t need him so early on the weekend. In an ideal world, he and Talib would be Fox’s No. 1 broadcast team in the NFL. I need Gus to call one Super Bowl in my life.
So get used to Mike and Chris on Sundays and Al and Herbie on Sundays, but we’ll always have that last slide to remind us of how things used to be.