Super Bowl 2022: Al Michaels still at the top of his game and not ready to call it quits
NBC's "Sunday Night Football" broadcaster Al Michaels called his record-tying 11th Super Bowl on Feb. 13, 2022. Credit: AP/Keith Srakocic
Rams superstar Aaron Donald hinted before the game that he might retire from football if he won Super Bowl LVI. We’ll see about that after his big finish, in which he thwarted the Bengals’ final two offensive plays.
But another star performer on Sunday made it clear during the week that he has no intention of leaving the scene.
That would be Al Michaels, who worked his record-tying 11th Super Bowl as a TV play-by-play man in the Rams’ 23-20 victory over the Bengals and at 77 remains at or near the top of his game.
It likely was the final Super Bowl for Michaels, who widely is expected to be succeeded by Mike Tirico as NBC’s lead play-by-play man. But Michaels could land elsewhere, perhaps as a member of Amazon’s new Thursday night team, and said in the run-up to the game that he is not ready to restrict himself to rocking chairs and golf.
Good thing, because it would be a shame to see him go.
He, analyst Cris Collinsworth and the rest of NBC’s on- and off-air crew produced a clean, smart telecast that hit the key narrative notes.
That included on the Rams’ long, late go-ahead drive, when Collinsworth flatly said early on that the Rams had to get the ball to Cooper Kupp no matter what the Bengals’ defense tried to do to stop him.
So it came to pass, in a big way. Kupp keyed the big drive. On fourth-and-1 from the Rams’ 30, he ran 7 yards to pick up a crucial first down. He caught the winning touchdown pass (twice, actually, as offsetting penalties nullified his first TD catch). And then he was named Super Bowl MVP.
Michaels and Collinsworth were on target early when they noted the Rams and Bengals had been called for relatively few penalties this season and also pointed out that the game’s officiating crew tended to throw few flags.
Collinsworth criticized a missed call on Cincinnati’s second touchdown, when Tee Higgins pulled the facemask of Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey and threw him to the ground en route to a 75-yard reception.
But the officials became an even bigger part of the story on the winning drive. No call was bigger than a defensive holding call on the Bengals’ Logan Wilson on a third-and-goal from the 8-yard line.
"Wow, in a game where there have not been that many ticky-tack fouls, that was close," Collinsworth said.
Strangely, NBC did not go to its designated officiating analyst, Terry McAulay, after any of the big calls.
As the game unfolded, the booth touched on key developments such as the Bengals’ stiff run defense, the (early) success Cincinnati had containing Donald and the damage done to the Rams’ offense when Odell Beckham Jr. left with a leg injury.
NBC captured some great images, including after the game with a shot of Beckham crying tears of joy and Donald, in tears, speaking after the game to reporter Michele Tafoya.
Later, Michaels praised Tafoya after her final game on NBC, then noted his own uncertain situation, saying to Collinsworth, "You and I, I don’t know what the future holds, pal. But 13 phenomenal years and we get this game."
For Michaels, it has been more than 13 phenomenal years. The guy was calling World Series games on NBC 50 years ago, when the Reds met the A’s. Fifty years!
And it has been 42 years since he made his most famous call, at the 1980 Olympic men’s hockey tournament in Lake Placid.
A run this long and this good? You could call it a broadcasting miracle, one not ready to be put on ice.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
