In his more than 50 years of sports broadcasting, Al Michaels has seen his share of historical and memorable events, from the Miracle on Ice in 1980, to the 1985 World Series between Royals and Cardinals, to Super Bowl XLVI between the Patriots and Giants. He’s covered world championships in every major American pro sports league. He’s covered both winter and summer Olympics. He’s covered the Triple Crown and Indianapolis 500. He’s covered the careers of legends, from John Elway to now Peyton Manning.
Along the way, Michaels has, among many other accolades, won seven Emmys and, in 2013, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio and Television Award.
After nearly two decades with ABC’s Monday Night Football, Michaels has been a part of NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew since 2006, helping to turn SNF into the most-watched prime-time show for four consecutive seasons. SNF continued its reign into 2015, boasting an average of 23.7 million viewers, the highest at this point in the season for NFL’s premier prime-time package since 1996.
This Sunday, Michaels will add another marker on his long list of sports firsts when he, along with Cris Collinsworth and Michele Tafoya, will call the Broncos’ matchup with the Packers at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The meeting will be the first-ever prime-time game featuring opponents with records of 6-0 or better, and it features the only two quarterbacks in NFL history to average more than two touchdown passes per game in Manning and Aaron Rodgers.
Michaels recently spoke to The Post about the big game; long-time Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, who will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Fame at halftime; his most memorable NFL game and more.
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What will Sunday night be like for you, in terms of production?
“We have this down to a science in terms of how we do the show, so we know what we’re doing mechanically and creatively in terms of production. We’ve been together for so long, the core group, so I’m not going to say this is another game, but we know how to do it and we’re excited about it because every game is different. And this game is special. It’s not very often that we go into November and get two teams who are 6-0. Our group — (producer) Fred Gaudelli and (director) Drew Esocoff and I — we’ve worked together 15 or 16 years, and Cris has now been there for seven and Michele has been with us for a lot of those years, both on Monday Night and Sunday Night. We’ve done Super Bowls, we’ve done a ton of playoff games, we’ve done some pretty good games. So we’re excited about it.
“We’ll prepare basically the same way we do every game, because if you say one game is more important than another, that means you don’t prepare for some lesser game to the degree that we want to, so we’re ready to go. But then the cherry on top of the cake here is the fact that you have this game here, which is pretty tremendous.”
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Does this game mean more to you personally since you’ve known Pat Bowlen for many years?
“I’m very happy that we’ll have the opportunity to be there to see him honored. I think he’s been a huge figure for the National Football League for a lot of years. I think he’s done a lot of really terrific things, not only for his franchise, which I’ve always felt was a top-notch franchise — the Broncos always have been in contention — but Pat has done a lot for the league as a whole. And I’ve always felt that the really great and iconic owners are the owners who have not only built great franchises individually, but have worked really hard to make the NFL a better product. That’s why I would put Pat into that category, because Pat was involved in so many things on the league level. The fact that Sunday night is now the biggest night — that goes back to Pat. That goes back to him working with Dick Ebersol, who ran NBC Sports at the time. And Dick will be in Denver, as well, with us this week. Pat invited Dick to come and Dick gladly accepted, so he’ll be there.
“Sunday Night has about a 50 percent larger audience than Monday Night does, and you can attribute that to Pat’s vision and the fact that he figured, ‘Hey, you know what, if we can make our big game Sunday night with a flexible schedule and all of that, that would be the best way to maximize the value of the NFL on TV.”
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What has been the most memorable NFL game you’ve covered?
“I would say two Super Bowls — this past one, and the Arizona-Pittsburgh Super Bowl in 2009. But it’s funny, in terms of regular-season games, and I did a column with (former Post columnist) Dusty Saunders when the Broncos moved into the new stadium, at the time I think it was Invesco in 2001, and we talked about my top 10 games on Monday Night Football, and five or six of them were in Denver. There was something about Denver that just created an extra amount of excitement.
“In the 20 years I did Monday Night Football, it was Denver against Kansas City, in 1994. It was during Wade Phillips’ two-year tenure there, against Marty Schottenheimer and the Chiefs. And it was just one of those back-and-forth, incredible games, when Joe Montana was playing for Kansas City. John Elway was the quarterback for Denver, of course, and the game just went back and forth and back and forth. Kansas City was able to pull out a victory in like the last eight seconds on a Montana pass to Willie Davis. That was one of those games where you went to the airport the next day and that was all you heard people talking about. ‘Did you see that game last night? How amazing was that?’ That was the NFL at its best. It was a game that captured the attention of the whole country. The next day everybody was gushing about it, and that would be my favorite regular-season game in all the years I’ve done it.”
So Elway and Montana in 1994, and now you have Manning and Rodgers.
“Yeah, I said the other night, Manning and (Tom) Brady have met seemingly 100 times. We’ll do one more of those; on Thanksgiving weekend we’re back in (Denver). But when you think about it, just the way the schedule is broken, the fact that they’re in separate conferences has a lot to do with the scheduling process, but the fact that these guys have only met one time is pretty interesting. Anytime you get a marquee matchup like this — you’ve got Rodgers, you’ve got Peyton, who is always great for the audience, two undefeated teams coming into Denver — it’s fantastic.”
You’ve seen a lot of great quarterbacks go through their career arc. What do you make of all the criticism of Manning now?
“It’s probably more symptomatic of the world today, where everybody has to weigh in, everybody has a chance to weigh in. So you have a maelstrom that’s developed through social media, the proliferation of 18 gazillion shows on television and talk radio. It’s like a dog with a bone, and the bone in the dog’s mouth is Peyton — “What is he? What’s going on? Does he still have it?” and all of that. What you have is a lot of regurgitation. You keep hearing it over and over and over and I really haven’t heard anything new.
“Look, we’re all watching. We see what’s going on. Does he look as good as he did 10 years ago? Or eight years ago? Or five years ago? Probably not. I can’t say he does. I’m not sure he would say he’s playing as well as he’s ever played. But they’re 6-0. So you hear all of this criticism and I’m like, ‘Hold on a second. He’s 6-0.’ I know a lot of it is the defense. I understand that. We all do. But I still think he has plenty left. He’s a guy we’ve loved to cover through the years. You can’t have anymore respect for a player than we have for him, both for what he’s done on the field and the way he is off the field. He’s the kind of guy you root for and you want to see him — you know, at a certain point, you want to see him put some gaffer’s tape on the mouth of the critics and turn in a five-touchdown performance. They’ll stop for a week. You know how this works. The phrase that I love the best is “overreaction Monday,” because that’s what it is. … Every Monday, around and around and around they go, and it’s like being in a whirlpool. The bottom line of this is that he’s played better, but he’s the quarterback of a team that’s 6-0.”
You covered Super Bowls where some great defenses led their teams to victory — the 1990 Giants, and 2002 Bucs, the 2008 Steelers. Is this Broncos defense capable of doing the same?
“Yeah, and you go back to 2000 with the Ravens. I think the Ravens went something like (five) games in the middle of the season where they didn’t score an offensive touchdown. And then they lift the Lombardi Trophy at the end. So, yeah, your defense can do it for you, no question about it. And this Denver defense has been tremendous.
“We still have three months before the Super Bowl, so, at the moment, the way they’re playing, yeah, they’ve taken them to this point. Can they sustain it? Yeah, you can. Doesn’t mean that you will. That’s why we love football. Obviously if the offense starts clicking a little better and the defense keeps playing the way it is now, there’s no question they’re a major contender.”
What were some of your favorite memories of covering Elway during his playing days?
“I’ve done so many of his games. I go back to when I was doing college football and he was playing at Stanford. It’s a collection of memories. That night with the Kansas City-Denver game would be one, but it didn’t turn out perfectly for him. I go back to that whole Elway-Montana matchup, which was just fantastic.
“There are guys you root for, that you want to see do well, and he certainly was one of them. And I was thrilled when he finally won that Super Bowl and then he comes back and he does again. I wrote about in my book (“You Can’t Make This Up”), where I was with John and his wife, and Pat Bowlen and Annabel, and Mike Shanahan and (his wife) Peggy, and we were all over in Hawaii after they had won their Super Bowl. I was there to cover the Pro Bowl. I remember we went to dinner, and this was maybe two or three weeks after John had won that second Super Bowl and he was still uncertain as to whether he wanted to come back or not. He was wrestling with would he play another year — this was early in 1999 — and at that point, there was some talk that he would maybe come into the Monday Night Football booth. We actually talked about it at dinner that night in Hawaii, but he chose not to go into broadcasting. He chose to retire, which he announced sometime in (May). But I remember John kind of wrestling with ‘should I?’ or ‘should I not?’ and as it turned out, I think it was great that he did it at that time, because I think his body had been beaten up enough.
“The next year we did an early season game in Denver when they retired John’s number and honored him and all of that. And I remember thinking, ‘Boy, that’s riding off into a Rocky Mountain sunset.’ “
CHEW ON THIS
• Fifty-five years ago today, Muhammad Ali (then an 18-year-old Cassius Clay), won his first professional fight, beating Tunney Hunsaker by unanimous decision in six rounds in his hometown of Louisville, Ky.
• Floyd Mayweather and it’s not fair.
• We’re still trying to figure out who ordered .
• The Denver Nuggets .
• Kawhi Leonard is .
• Oh, hey, by the way: Peyton Manning is only a win away from tying Brett Favre (186) for the most victories by a starting quarterback in NFL history.
• .
• Mark Kiszla and I sat down with Bronco greats Rod Smith, Ed McCaffrey and Jake Plummer to talk about this year’s team, Sunday’s game and owner Pat Bowlen in a lengthy NFL roundtable. Check it out on on Friday. The three shared some great stories from their playing days.
• Until then, check out .
WATCH THIS
It’s National Cat Day. . If you want a kitten to play with for 15 minutes, (seriously).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Bob Ross would be 73 today. Wherever he is, the landscape’s full of happy trees.
Nicki Jhabvala: njhabvala@denverpost.com or @NickiJhabvala
Online sports producer Joe Nguyen contributed to this story.
