Football fans and sports media were surprised earlier this week when the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand reported that NBC would be dropping the legendary broadcaster from its upcoming NFL playoff slate, a job that even Michaels thought he still had.

Despite leaving NBC in 2021 to be the lead play-by-play for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video, Michaels was still contractually signed to call the playoffs and did so last year. Although he had another rough year of atrociously uncompetitive TNF games (just look at last night’s debacle), Al thought that he would at least get some relief come playoff time with some solid games.

Oops.

So what changed?

Enter, Taylor Swift.

[Naah. Gunzelman himself is skeptical of this explanation, although Michaels has been somewhat dismissive of Swiftie Nation on air, both this season and last. Gunzelman thinks that the issue is Michaels himself and that his on-air performances have been “off” this year. I haven’t watched enough of them to tell, but Michaels has been a reliable announcer for sports for nearly six decades. Michaels made the iconic “Do you believe in miracles?” call in the 1980 Olympics when USA Hockey beat the dominating USSR team 4-3, and then went on to win the gold medal in the final round. Maybe he’s running out of gas, or maybe the NFL just wants a younger team in the booth for the playoffs. Not everything in the NFL is about Tay-Tay. — Ed]