The Press Box - Al Michaels Revisits the 10 Super Bowls He Called

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Bryan is joined by Al Michaels to break down his past 10 Super Bowls called as we approach Super Bowl LVI, featuring the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams. Michaels revisits close games ending in interceptions or stops, discusses working alongside the great John Madden, and talks through what it’s like calling Super Bowls with dynasty teams versus games featuring new teams.  Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Al Michaels Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dave Chang is an avid student and fan of sports, music, art, film, and of course, food. With a rotating cast of guests, they have conversations that cover everything from the creative process to his guest's guiltiest pleasures. Follow the Dave Chang Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to the press box. Brian Curtis of the ringer here along with producer Erica Servantes. Let me give you some numbers about today's guest, NBC, play-by-play announcer Al Mike. Michael. Al Michaels has been calling the premier primetime NFL game, first Monday night football, now Sunday night football, for 36 years. In that period, Michaels has called 10 Super Bowls, and the February 13th game between the Bengals and Rams will be his 11th, which puts him into a tie

with Pat Summerall. Now, if you read media columns, you know that Michaels' contract with NBC is up after this game. He may well be on Amazon or perhaps ESPN next year. so our mission here is very simple. Ten Super Bowls, a bunch of stories, and some insight into how Michaels became the play-by-play voice of a generation. Here's Al Michaels. All right, Al, 1988, you call your first Super Bowl,

Washington versus Denver. You'd call it a bunch of big games to that point. How did the Super Bowl feel different? Well, I had done Monday night football the year before with Frank Difford. That was a major C change from what had gone on in the past. And then we added Dan Deirdroof the following year. It was a strike season where after week two, the players were locked out. They played with the replacement guys.

They missed one week during the season. So there were only 15 games. And it was Washington against Denver. So it was exciting. there was a little bloom off the rows that you hear. People were upset with the league, upset with the players. It wasn't a full season. But anyway, we get to San Diego.

It's Washington against Denver. Obviously, I was very excited at that point. And the Super Bowls, up until that point, had pretty much been snore fest, very one-sided, not particularly memorable. And in that game, Denver took a 10-0-0. lead and I kind of looked over at Dan and Frank during one of the commercial breaks and I said, hey, maybe we get the gym finally. Maybe something exciting is going to happen. You knew Washington

would mount a little bit of a comeback. Little did I realize that comeback would entail 35 points being scored in the second quarter. Doug Williams having the day of days. And then at halftime, Dan and I walked to the back of the booth and looked at each other and simultaneously said, hell just happened. And then Timmy Smith had a great second half. I mean, it was true garbage time in the second half. And Washington won the game 42 to 10. And that's the way I broke in with that particular Super Bowl, Super Bowl, I think, 22. So Super Bowl, tens of millions of people watching and you've got garbage time. What is the garbage time plan for a Super Bowl? Well, you know, you go into every game with tons of stories. And if the game is any good, you leave about 95

percent of them on the floor. I mean, that's been the case my entire career. So you're, you're really well-armed and you're all set to do whatever you have to do. And you hope you don't have to get to too many of those stories. But on that particular day, I think we got to all of them, because in the second half, you had nothing going on. There was no drama inherent in what was going to take place the rest of the day. So we were able to go hither and yon, but I'm sure the audience was long gone for the time we were, for the time we were finished. You mentioned Gifford and Deirdorf. What changes about your job when you're in a three-man booth as opposed to a two-man? Well, there's a rhythm, a two-man booth is an easy rhythm.

There's a back and forth. It's almost like you're having a conversation with somebody. It's hard. It's particularly hard for the analysts. I mean, my role is to call the play and to maybe set up the analyst and then have them do the replays. But for Dan and Frank, it was a little bit difficult because Frank had come over from the play-by-play side. So he was only in his second year as an analyst. Dan was in his first year with us. So it was a little, I don't want to say necessarily awkward, but a three-man booth doesn't really work as well as a good two-man booth. I'll say with one exception in my career, when I worked baseball for many years with Jim Palmer and Tim McCarver, that was a wonderful blend.

At least it felt that way for me because, again, baseball is a different animal. So much of it obviously is pitching. You know, Jim was there for that. Tim was there for all of the rest. But those guys were adept at going either way. They could, Jim could certainly talk about every other aspect of the game. and Tim could talk about pitching, almost as well as Jim could. So that it just kind of worked, and it's the only time I can honestly say that in a three-man booth,

I thought that was as good as it could have gotten. And it's the only time I will say that a three-man booth was better than a two-man booth. Gifford had been the play-by-playman on Monday night football for so many years at that point, and he was moving, as you said, over to the analyst job. How did he take that? Well, at first he wasn't very happy about it, because Rune Arledge had brought Frank over in 1971, the second year of Monday Night Football.

It started in 1970. Arlese wanted to bring Frank over from CBS. They wouldn't let him out of his contract. So Arledge made Keith Jackson the original play-by-play announcer on Monday night football. And then he took Keith out of the booth after one year. And it felt guilty to the extent that he gave Keith College football. Keith obviously was able to make his chops doing college football for, you know, probably 30 some odd years or more. Frank gets the job in 71.

Frank and Rune were very, very close. And then Dennis Swanson takes over in 1986 when capital cities buys ABC. So Dennis comes in and Dennis was pretty much a bull and a China shop. And Arledge was out one day and Dennis is in the next day. and Dennis took no prisoners. And I didn't know, I didn't even know Dennis Swanson. And the second day he's on the job, I get a call telling me I am going to be the play-by-play announcer on Monday night's football.

You could have blown me away. I'm going, what? What just happened? So, and I get the call and I'm told I'm the play-by-play announcer. O.J. Simpson and Joe Namath, who had been to the booth with Frank the year before, we're out. Frank was being offered the analyst role. He was reluctant to accept it, so they'd already talked to him about this. And I was told, I'm doing play-by-play regardless, and if Frank doesn't accept it, we'll find somebody else.

So Frank wasn't particularly happy about it, but we wound up working together for the next 11 years and became great friends and it worked out great. And you'd been eyeing the job at that point? You're 40-something at that point, like I said, called World Series. No, I wasn't eyeing that job. I was doing Monday night baseball. I was very happy doing that. I was doing a ton of wide world of sports shows. I was doing the number two game on college football and various other assignments

and good assignments at the Olympics. I was never buying Monday night football ever. And all of a sudden, it just popped up. It popped up one day. Thanks to Dennis Swanson, I'll be forever grateful. And that, of course, has led to 36 years of doing the number one front time. game in the national football league. Thank you, Dennis.

Your second Super Bowl, 1991, Bill's Giants. Also, your first really great Super Bowl with Scott Norwood, of the bills missing that kick at the end. What do you remember about that last play? Well, that came a number of days after we had invaded Iraq, Desert Storm. So the country was nervous. We were at the war.

And everybody was pretty much glued to their television sets, watching what was going on. you know, thousands of miles away. I remember the first time I got to Tampa that week and drove up to the stadium, it's the first time I ever saw concrete barriers around the entire facility. So the security was extremely tight. Again, I'm with Frank and Dan. It was the Giants Against the Bills.

It was different. There was a little bit of a poll over the whole, you know, over the country at that particular point. And there wasn't a lot of excitement because of what was taking place. over in Iraq. I also remember the night before, the funniest story, in a way, most ironic anyway. So the night before the game,

Dennis Swanson comes to Frank and Dan and me and says the SWAT team members down here want to meet with you guys. So they come to the hotel. It's 9 o'clock on Saturday night. Super Bowl is the next day. And they sit us down and go, listen,

if terrorists invade the broadcast food and take you guys hostage, here's what we want you to do. And I'm sitting there kind of rolling my eyes and I'm going seriously. And we walk out of the room and Dan says, whoa, he said, that was really something.

And I looked at the guys and I said, guys, you know what this was? This is a bunch of guys who want to get into the game for free and watch the game from the 50-yard line. Stop it. And Frank says, a thousand percent. Anyway, the game was pretty good.

It wasn't a great game, but it had a dramatic ending. Buffalo, it's the first of their four Super Bowls that would wind up winning none of them. And Scott Norwood misses a 47-yard field goal at the end, and the Giants win for the second time in four seasons under Bill Parcells. You said in your book, too, there was no blimp for that game due to security reasons. because of the fact that they didn't want anything flying. No planes, blimps, helicopters flying over the stadium. So we had a camera located on the top floor of a hotel,

maybe a half mile away with a telescoping lens. And that's how we shot our aerials. 1995 Super Bowl number three between the 49ers and Chargers was a funny one because the spread was 18 and a half points with thereabouts in favor of the 49ers. and you're the spread guy. So how did you handle that? Well, Dennis once again comes to me before the game. You know, I'd been the rascal at that point anyway,

dropping in these little over under side stories. And what I would do for a regular season game, every other game, let's say, if the spread was in question at the end. So Dennis says the league is very sensitive to the point spread, to the fact that it is such a big favorite. Can you avoid making any references to it? I said, yeah, I'll try.

So it's 49 to 26. 49 is a killing him. The game had no drama at all. Steve Young throws six touchdown passes. Jerry Rice has a big day. The defense does its job. But at the end of the game, San Diego has the ball at about the 35-yard line.

Stan Humphreys is going to throw a pass to end the game. and I was very well aware of what the situation was. PSAV completes the pass and it's a touchdown. They cover it. So I sort of on the side, sort of in a low voice, it's something like Humphrey's Back to Pass and all across America,

hearts are beating furiously incomplete. So because I remember the year before NBC had a blowout Super Bowl too. And in the last garbage time, they had gone away and had all of the shots of coaches and everything else. But the game, and I'm going, guys, don't you understand? You've got millions of people totally invested in garbage time. That was the case then in Miami, but they were able to save them off. And San Francisco won the game and covered by plenty. And that's what was behind the gambling references.

We know there is a portion of the audience that cares about this. And if we don't nod to this, however elliptically, we are doing then the disservice of the story of the game a disservice? Well, I think for me, always having a little bit of that rascal in me. And people at that point perceived that the announcers were not supposed to talk about anything that had anything to do with gambling. But I would always like come in the side door or the back door. So I love that. And, you know, what was the league going to basically say? They knew people were going to bet on games.

What were they going to do? Go tell Congress to make it illegal to throw people in jail for gambling. They couldn't do that. They wouldn't do that. And I knew that. So even though they would, you know, maybe publicly frown a little bit, but nobody really got terribly distressed that I would throw in a back door or a side door or a word or phrase to indicate that I knew.

I knew what you knew. So in other words, that was my way of telling everybody. who had money on the game, I know what you know, and I'm with you. I'm with you, and I know what you're going through right now. It's interesting because play by play can be a pretty contained job. You know, if anybody gets the analyst who is set up to show off their personality. But from the beginning of your time on Monday night football, you know, I always remember you sneaking a little of your personality and your humor and your sensibility into the broadcast. Was that a conscious effort on your part? Pretty much the way I've always done all the games I've.

done. I did that on common football too. I had Frank Broils and I had Lee Gross Cup and I had Ara Parsegi and his partners. Same way I did it. Same way I did it on baseball. And if it's just cut and dried, play by play, you might as well have a PA announcer do it. And it's not, I don't need, I don't need the spotlight, but I think sometimes what I try to do is I do the rudimentary analysis. And Tim McCarver loved it because instead of just stopping, you know, ball one, strike one, fly ball, whatever it is, I could, I would do the early analysis and let Tim and Jim Palmer go deeper. And so, hey, you know, I don't, you guys don't need to start with A or B. Go to C, D, E, and up all the way down the line. And McCarver, for one, always told me, I love when you do that because it, it frees me up to

places I've never been before. So that's always been kind of like my philosophy. I love to set my guys up. I work with John Madden for seven years. Chris Collins worked now for 13. That's the way we do it. And it's worked out, as far as I'm concerned, has worked out great for 20 years.

You do that first level stuff. Take it off the board. Then they can get to the second level, as we say in sports. Correct. Yep, good way to put it. And do you think it brought the audience close to you? you putting that much personality into a call? I think it's a good thing to inject a little bit of your personality from time to time.

I mean, you're not an automaton or a robot. I've been on television for national television for 45 years. A lot of people say, you know, I just grew up with you. So, yeah, they know you, but it's, it's never going to be about me. But I'll throw in a line or two just to let people know, I get it. I get it. Let's have a little bit of fun here. Let's have a little bit of laughter.

And then we go back to the game. Super Bowl number 4, 2000. It was Titans Rams, another incredible finish. Last play of the game, the Titans wide receiver, Kevin Dyson, stretches out toward the goal line, which would have tied the game. He doesn't get in. From the 10, final play of the game. In regulation.

Dyson, Kenny. So tell me about that kind of play, because it's the last play of the Super Bowl. You want to put some English on it, which you also don't want to be wrong. And now it's all the way. So how do you hedge it? Well, that was an interesting game. It was 16-0-0 at one point. Rams, then it was 16-old.

And the Rams took the lead on the Isaac Bruce touchdown pass. It's the Kurt Warner Year. Tennessee comes back down the field. It's going to be the last play of the game. And Steve McNair throws a pass to Kevin Dyson. And that's one of those moments in time when you just want to be, the synapses of your brain have to just open up wide. and hope that you get the call right.

And fortunately, I was able to see Mike Jones clearly as Dyson is being tackled and make the call on him. And I have my spotter, Malamu Kelly Hayes, who I've now worked with the 45 years. And it's like our brain's work is won. And I'm calling Mike Jones makes the tackle. And I can see him pointing to Mike Jones. I know I've got it. And the Rams have won the Super Bowl. and then it ends on the one yard line, time runs out.

And I think I waited a few seconds, and then I said something like, you've heard of the movie, the longest yard, there's your sequel. So people don't know. Great game. Great game. So people don't understand what a spotter does. He is holding a board of numbers for you, essentially? Well, he has the whole, yeah, he has the depth chart, in effect, on a board.

next to me. But he is my second pair of eyes. And for the most part, he's there to tell me who's in the game, who's out of the game. So in other words, we're doing so much during the game. I can only see so much. And if guys are coming in, especially in today's world of professional football, where you've got all these sub packages and different people coming in at various times. If somebody gets hurt too, he's right on the money. He's showing me, you know, somebody's limping over the field. somebody comes into the game somebody's here comes the wildcat here comes mariotta in with their car going outside so it's like having another pair of eyes with me and a guy i can trust and malamu and i worked together for 45 years now so in that particular play you're watching the field and then your eyes do a little just a little come down and look at what he's pointing at jones right and it's almost like i need the validation i know i've got it i'm i'm 99% i've gotten it right but is that, you know, 1% like, oh, my God, that I really messed this up. And so, you know, I'm just kind of, I'm watching the field and we've got the monitor.

And then I'm just kind of like, you know, glancing over real quickly for confirmation. That's the confirmation process. It's all happening. Warp speed. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you get one shot at it. In the meantime, the perfect call is coming out of your mouth or what you hope is the perfect call is coming out of your mouth.

You hope so. You pray. Otherwise, it lives forever. You know that. That was the one game you called with Boomer Asiason, which you have talked about, was not a terribly happy partnership. What's it like to call a game with someone you don't get along with that well? Well, you know, I look back of those two years.

I think one of the issues there, I'm not sure Boomer was ready to retire. I think there was a, he still had one foot on the field. And I know he actually tried to get back and I talked to some teams over the, over the two years we worked together to try to see if he could go back to, football. So I think part of the problem was he was half on the field and half in the booth. And to me, I think you have to work with somebody who's completely invested in his new business. You're not in the X-shock business. You're in the broadcasting business. And now, he's in the broadcasting business. He knows how to have a broadcast. He's on, you know,

radio in New York all the time. CBS, he does a great job on that. But now it's, it wasn't all at that time and I could I could feel it and it was almost like you know he wasn't all in at that moment in time because he still wanted to play football at least in the back of his mind and you know once he realized that that was done then he then he became a broadcaster and not an ex-shock that's interesting um I want to slip this story in here because it happens in 2000 or around 2000. Somehow you got into the hotel room that Al Gore conceded and then unconcited the 2000 election in and made off with something. Will you tell people that story? Yeah, so we're doing Dallas against Tennessee on Christmas night 2000. And I'm on the top floor of the Lowe's Hotel, Lowe's

Vanderil Hotel. And I've got a problem with the internet at that point. So, and the phone. So the guy comes up the engineer. And so we've had all these problems on the top floor because Al Gore was down the hall on election night and he was using this as his campaign headquarters. And he was, he was in the suite that Bud Adams, who then owned the team, the late Bud Adams, own the Titans. And he was in the Bud Adams suite. So we go out to dinner and I'm back in the hotel. The phone has gotten fixed. I walked out in the hole. And I'm I see that the door to the Adam suite is open. And I knew Bud, so I was going to go in there,

either to tell him his door is still open or if he's in there to wish him Merry Christmas. So I walk in and nobody's in the suite. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, this was where Gore was. The night he concedes the Bush. Of course, after that, of course, then they had the whole hanging Chad situation.

We didn't know who the president was for six weeks. But I'm thinking of myself, there's a phone on a coffee table. And I'm sure they must have had secure phones, but maybe this was a phone that somebody used that night. And maybe even this was the phone that Gore had used that night. So I unplugged it and I took it with me and it still sits out of my garage. Just flipped it out.

They didn't wind up in the Smithsonian. By the way, that hotel had enough problems. They're not going to miss that phone too much. It's a Smithsonian over the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We're going to donate that one. We're making some new. news right now. Yeah, either that or the Mad Magazine Hall of the one of the three.

Super Bowl number five is 2003 Raiders Bucks, which is the first one you called with John Madden. Now, John Madden is John Madden. Al Michaels is Al Michaels. Do you have to have a discussion with him before you guys teamed up that year for the first time? Not at all. He was excited about coming over to Monday night.

I was excited to happen coming over to Monday night. he had heard me do hundreds of games I had heard him do hundreds of games we knew each other well enough it was it was exciting I couldn't wait for the season to start and our first game is in Canton Full of Fame game

2000 excuse me 2002 we go to a commercial break I felt like I've been working with him for 10 years it took 10 minutes it was that simple. And in fact, our producer, Fred Goodellie, when they paired us, asked us if we wanted to do like a practice game, rehearsal game. You know, get a monitor, roll of tape.

And John looked at me since I was the senior guy at that point at ABC. And I said, I don't think we need this. And we walked out in Johnson, I'm glad you said that. that would have been too artificial. So we got along great. The time we got to the Super Bowl, easy as pie. Couldn't work with a better guy. Totally got it.

And I just mentioned something about invested in the broadcasting business. He was. Not only getting no football inside out. Totally invested in becoming a broadcaster. And what made John so great? He was a fantastic communicate. Fantastic. Some of the obits had talked about how Pat Summer

when they had teamed up in the early 80s, had given him lots of room to work, you know, lots of time, lots of space to do his thing. Did you give him more time than you would, other analysts you'd work with, or is it about the same? I said to John after he'd worked with Patrick, I think, for 21 years.

He comes over and I said, you know, I brought up a couple of examples of what he had done in the past things I had seen. And I said, you know, if that's me, I'm going to engage you because I was interested in what you knew and I knew a lot of what you knew

and I wanted to go deeper and farther into it. I said, that's different than something that, you know, you've been used to. I said, are you okay with that? And John said to me, I'd love that. I embrace that. And I think what John was saying, without saying the exact words was,

you know, I had done it one way for 21 years. It's fine. I can use a little refresher here, as it was for me as well. And maybe going about it a little bit differently and engaging in more back and forth, John embraced it. He loved it. And, you know, to his dying day, we remain great friends. It worked, it worked beautifully for seven years. Absolutely. Could not have been better. a little mini reset for both of you, the way you were used to doing things. Right. In a way, you know, it was, it was fresh. It was something new, something different. We had a lot of fun, lots of, lots of fun. 2006, Steelers Seahawks, again with Madden. What I read about this

Super Bowl was the week of the game was consumed with rumors of you may be moving from ABC ESPN to NBC. So how did that whole week go down? That was a difficult situation. 2005 was difficult to begin with because new contracts had been signed. NBC was getting back in the following year, 2006. And ABC was going to have Monday Night Football for only that year. And then it goes to ESPN. So Dick Ebersoll swooped in right off the bat and signed John Madden,

whose deal was up at the end of 2005. And before that season is done, that's our lame duck year, which is going to end with the Super Bowl. He signs Fred Goodellie and Drew Esikoff, my producer and director. And now he's trying to sign me, but we can't make a deal. So then I'm in a position where I'm told by Disney, you know, we want you to do Monday night on ESPN. You've got to let us know like now. So I couldn't make the deal with NBC So I let him know now

That I'm going to do it But this is like months out We get to the end of the season We get to the Super Bowl And I'm thinking You know what All my guys are over there Ever saw makes another run at me

We get close Again I had a contract At ESPN but I'm thinking This is not going to work The way they wanted it to work at that point it wasn't going to work. They wanted to pair me with Joe Thaisman. Nothing against Joe,

but I'm leaving John Madden, the greatest of all time. I didn't like what their philosophy was. And finally, I went to the powers that be at Disney and since I'd been there for a long time for 30 years. I said, guys, let me tell you, I know it's not going to look good for anybody here,

but I think it's best for both of us. I said, what you want to do on Monday night at ESPN, it's not how I do games. It's antithetical. So I would like to have the opportunity to go back where I belong at NBC with my guys. And I know it's going to be an embarrassment. Maybe for you guys are losing me. For me, it looks like I'm walking out on the contract.

But I think it's the best for everybody concerned. And that's pretty much how it happened. And we all agree that, you know, it's a, but that Super Bowl, that was rough piece. Everybody's talking about what are you going to do, what are you going to do? And I'm going I don't know. I really don't know. And it came down to like the day before the Super Bowl and I finally

knew it would be done. And philosophically speaking, other than hiring Thaisman, what was different about their plan from what you wanted to do? They had a lot of bells and whistles. They had a guy who they were going to put in charge of

the creative operation of the show who I was not on the same page with, let's just put it that way. They had ideas that were not my ideas that were tried 20 to 30 years before that and they were reinventing the wheel. And I was kind of like a lone ranger instead of being one of the central figures on Monday night at ABC for 20 years. Now I'm kind of like, I'm the guy on the outside. And there was a lot of of at that point rivalry

between ESPN and ABC. And ESPN, they were so happy to have Monday night and their people were going to do Monday night. And I was the outlier. And I'm the ABC guy coming over, right? I'm the big time guy coming up to the,

this was the little engine that could that becomes the worldwide leader in sports. And it just, I knew it wouldn't work. And I knew it would have been very bad for all of us. It turned out to be fine, at least for me anyway. 2009 is Super Bowl number seven, now at NBC, again with Madden.

Another great game, by the way. This is where you start this run of like four classic Super Bowls in a row. Steelers 27, Cardinals 23. What do you remember about Santonea Holmes' go ahead, catch late in that game? Not only that catch. I mean, there were two epic plays in that game. One, obviously, is the Holmes' catch at the end of the game to win it. But the other one is James Harrison's 100-yard interception.

return before the half. He intercepts Kurt Warner. Arizona's going in to take the lead. Next thing you know, he intercepts at the goal line and runs it back 100 yards as the clock is running out and just barely gets into the end zone. If he goes out at the half yard line, there's no time left. They can't even kick a field goal. He runs 100 yards.

And you have Larry Fitzgerald trying to tackle him, but he has to run through his whole bench. He's like running through the whole state of Arizona. Arizona, as I would say later on. But that game, that game was phenomenal. Larry Fitzgerald was having one of the great postseason's ever. Arizona takes the lead. What are the Cardinals even doing in the game?

They were nine and seven. They were a franchise that had done nothing throughout most of their history. They had lost in New England, something like 50 to seven a couple of weeks before. and they go on this magical run with Warner and Fitzgerald and guys like that. And Ken Wisen Hunt was the coach. That game may have been my favorite game to this day. I think that telecast, that telecast just worked. Everything just worked perfectly.

And I remember walking out of the stadium with John going down to the trucks. And there was just this afterglow for everybody. Everything was caught perfectly. I mean, every picture, everything was documented perfectly. And I remember thinking, wow, you know, and John was, John and I were finishing our seventh year. I thought John was as good as he's ever been. I thought he had a fantastic telecast. Turned out it was the last the game he would do.

Three months later, he just decided that's it. And as he said, it's time. And that's how he walked away. So that was quite a way to end it. He walked out truly on top. in every profession. Eight Super Bowls, 2012. Madden has been replaced, as you said, by Chris Collinsworth.

This is Giants 21 Patriot 17. Do you like dynasties having a dynasty in a Super Bowl? Do you like a kind of fresh Super Bowl like this when we got with Rams, Bengals, better? Either way. I mean, it's pretty good. I mean, even if Kansas City had been in the upcoming one, that's a many dynasty, that would have been fine. Mahomes is, you know, he's magic.

Except in the second half the other day, he wasn't so much. magical as we as we know. It's fun. Either way, you know, you get a dynasty and I've done three Patriot Super Bowls. They've all come down through the end of the game. Thought we might have them again this year, the way they were playing. Who knows, but their run obviously ended very quickly in the playoffs. But it's kind of cool when you have a Cincinnati in there or in Arizona, as was the case in 08. I mean, that's great too because there are so many.

new and fresh story. So I'll take it either way. 2015 is your night's Super Bowl. Again with Collinsworth, again, as you say, with the Patriots, Patriots 28, Seahawks 24, known for Malcolm Butler, the Patriots DB, intercepting the ball when Seattle should have run the ball into the end zone. I watched this call a thousand times. One of the things I'm always struck by is your ability to get Malcolm Butler's name out of

your mouth so quickly a name. was not on anybody's, the tip of anybody's tongue. Is that Kelly Hayes again? Or how did you see that play? 14 years later, that's Mike Jones making the tackle for the Rams. Same thing. Now, what happened in that instance, I was fortunate in that Butler was one of the guys, you're not really, I'm studying everybody before the game, but I'm not spending a lot of

time because he was a backup defensive back, but he had come into the game. And two or three plays before that, he was in. involved in a play along the sideline where curse almost came down with the catch. It looked like he didn't make the catch and he didn't make the catch. So Butler is right there. So fortunately for me, he's kind of in my mind. This is only a couple of minutes later. And then he intersects it in an angle that I can see perfectly who it is.

And again, it's that I call it. And out of the corner of my eye, I'm looking down and Kelly's got his finger right. on Butler's number. And I'm going, thank God. It was, this was Mike Jones, part two. Trust me. And fortunately, both guys were able to come in and make that tackle in a position

where I could, I can see their numbers very clearly. What's interesting about that call, too, is you can hear the disbelief in your voice, which was a disbelief that everyone watching that telecast test. You don't just say Malcolm Butler. You're interested by Malcolm Butler. Butler.

Yeah. And I think the next word was unreal. which it was. And that's you, that is genuine disbelief on your part, again, with all these mechanical things going on, who's that? Right. Do I have the name right? Is he intercepting the ball? And then trying to get the emotion in there at the same moment.

Right. Right. And why didn't he give it to Marshawn Lynch or roll out? You know, Chris always felt he should have given the ball to Marshawn Lynch. I don't necessarily think he needed to do that at that particular point. But I was shocked that Wilson threw a pass from the pocket. into the middle of all the traffic. It's funny. You and Chris waited about 20 seconds.

You did all the replays, went through it all, and then you started questioning the call, both of you during the telecon. And there's no question there that you're going to go right to that, that it's time to do what everyone at home is thinking and ask why the Cahawks didn't run the ball? Yeah, I have to. To me, you know, Chris always felt they had to run the ball, but it was interesting. You know, everybody's going to be advanced statistics. Later on, we found out that Lynch was toward the bottom of the league

on gaining one yard when he needed to. So he wasn't necessarily going to get that one yard. It's easy to say now, but we don't know if he would do. What shocked me is that Wilson didn't roll out one way or the other, get out of the pocket. Because Wilson could have run it in too. And give him, give himself some space instead of throwing a pass. You know, Russell is one of the shorter quarterbacks,

throwing in amongst the monsters at the goal line with tons of traffic. Anyway, here we are all these years later, second-guessing the hell out of that play. But that's what makes it all fun. Not fun for Pete Carroll, but that was fun for us. Ted's Super Bowl, 2018, Eagles 41 Patriots 33. I want to ask you about this. You've called now so many, so many games. Game a week, a primetime game week in the NFL, as you said, for 36 years.

How much recall do you have of play? play by play of a game like that, of things you said in a game like that beyond the obvious big plays? A lot. And in fact, that's why I sort of cringe when all of these Super Bowls are played back on the NFL network, because I'm watching it. And I've kind of got the sound down a little bit because I'm never happy with exactly the way I've called something. Truly never, because I'm going, yeah, I could have been. that used, I could have, I could have had a better call. So I'm watching it, but I'm,

it's like, you know, I'm kind of like in the other room, and it's on real low, because I'm, you know, I just don't want to, I don't want to watch it back. I mean, there are some calls I'm going, okay, yeah, I got that one, but during the middle of the game, I'm thinking, you know what, that,

that wasn't perfect. And I guess, you know, I'm so anal, I want to be perfect, but it's hard to do. And that's why I have a hard time, you know, kind of watching stuff back. And what are the kind of imperfections that pop out at you? Just, you know, maybe the rhythm of where I was at that particular point of the game. Just, I just, again, it's that lyrics, melody thing. And the game was going. I was just a little bit like off-centered, not all the time, but enough of the time that I don't want to watch the game back again.

Because I know, you know, I'm looking, I'm looking to pitch the perfect game. I'm not, I'm not looking to pitch a two-hitch shutout. Watching some of those old Super Bowls. First of all, it's amazing how underproduced they are compared to today in terms of on-screen graphics, sound effects, bells and whistles, right? It's like watching another generation of television. It is. But you know what?

You can overdo it, too. And I'm lucky. I've worked with the best production crew. Everybody says the best, but I'm going to give my guys, they are the best of the best. And we go into a Super Bowl, everybody wants to know, what are you going to do that's different or differently? We go, no, no, no, we're trying to just figure out, how do we do something better?

Not different, better. And you don't want to overwhelm people. We don't throw in tons of nonsensical statistics and graphics and all of that, especially in the Super Bowl. The game starts. People want to watch the game. We're going to give them the game. You know, we're going to give them the game.

You know, we're going to give them a few bells whistles, but only if they're appropriate to the game itself. If they match the game, if they're germane to the game, if it enhances the enjoyment of the game. Apart from that, forget about the rest of the stuff. When you watch one accidentally from 88 or 91 with the soundway down, does your voice have a different quality back then, do you think, than it does today? It does. It does, definitely. I'm older. I'm older. I don't know that I'm wiser. but yeah, I hear that, you know, I hear that in everybody's voice.

I mean, I've listened to Howard Stern for over 30 years. You listen to Howard from 88, it's different. You listen to Joe Buck from when he started, and it's different. We all get older, we all get, you know, I don't know how to describe it. But I think we get maybe hushier, deeper. I don't know, that's the right way to put it. And also, I think the way, you know, the audio is, is, how do I describe this? The audio people can make it some, they can give it a slightly different tonal quality,

which wasn't available to them years ago. So I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but, but it's kind of half making it up, Brian, but, you know. It's just like live television now. Like live television, just make it up on the fly. Can I tell you? Al Michaels, thanks for coming on the press box. And, hey, we'll do it before.

Well, when we do it again? We'll figure out how to do it one more time. This is fun. Going back a little trip down memory lane. Thanks, man. Be good. Thanks, Al. Thanks again to Al Michaels.

I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantis. A couple of things I want to put on your podcast planning calendar here. Next Monday, I am going to be hosting my half of the podcast from Radio Row at the Super Bowl. We will probably hear some familiar names from the sports media world on that podcast. Then later next week, you'll hear from more media types covering the big game on our interview pod. Some very fun people I think are going to join us. And then immediately after the Super Bowl on February 13th, Shoemaker and I are going to turn on the mics and do an emergency podcast on every bit of media we consume that night.

That means the game, the announcers, the commercials, everything. Stay up late with us and enjoy. Plus, of course, more lukewarm. about the media. Have a great weekend.