A familiar face will be in NBC’s broadcast booth on Saturday night. Play-by-play legend Al Michaels returns to the network to call the AFC Wild Card game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars.
Michaels will work on the call with Super Bowl champion and former NFL head coach Tony Dungy. Ari Meirov reported the news on Thursday.
Michaels recently left NBC to call games on Amazon Prime Video. He and Kirk Herbstreit worked together throughout the regular season on Thursday Night Football.
Michaels’ move from NBC to Amazon might’ve made sense financially, but he had to endure some brutal nights. Several of the Thursday Night Football contests he covered turned out to be duds.
At one point, Michaels jokingly said he might step away from broadcasting if another game was as bad as the Week 5 contest between the Colts and Broncos.
“If we don’t have a better game than we had last Thursday then I may retire,” Michaels said in an appearance on Waddle & Silvy on ESPN Chicago. “I’ve done pretty close to 800 NFL games, and with all due respect, guys are trying, I understand, and we all know that, but that was grim.”
So, at least he’ll get to call a playoff game this season. And it features two teams that have had an extended absence from the NFL playoffs. Jacksonville’s last trip came in 2017, while Los Angeles appeared most recently in 2018.
Kickoff is set for 8:15 p.m. ET on NBC.
Chargers Fire Back at Doubters
Before Al Michaels sees the Los Angeles Chargers on the field on Saturday, the team had a few scores to settle. After getting kicked around during the season, they’re throwing receipts back at some of their harshest critics.
In the middle of the season, the Chargers took a ton of heat from the national pundits. Many considered their playoff hopes to be done after falling to 5-5 through 10 games.
Los Angeles ripped off wins in five of their final seven games, securing a spot in the playoffs. The team pieced together a 1-minute video of all the doubters critiquing the Chargers.
Can the Chargers continue proving the doubters wrong? We’ll find out on Saturday night.
