Al Michaels complimentary of Amazon's 2024 ‘TNF’ schedule

The NFL has received its share of criticism from fans and media alike over the last few years for being a bit disingenuous with its slate of games for “Thursday Night Football.”

Al Michaels, the full-time play-by-play announcer for “TNF,” has been as vocal as any in calling the league out for putting afterthought games that often weren’t very competitive on Thursday nights; however, that’s not the case this year.

In a recent interview with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, Michaels disclosed that he actually had good things to say about the 2024 “TNF” schedule.

“Over the past two years…I used to look at the schedule and say, ‘How many of these games could wind up in the national window on CBS or Fox?’” Michaels said. “And I’d come up with two, maybe three. I’m looking at the schedule right now, and I could come up with six, seven, maybe eight, which is half of our schedule. So, I think the league did Prime Video a solid when I take a look at this thing.” 

The favorable Thursday night schedule wasn’t by accident. 

It appears the league heard the large amount of backlash it had received over the last two years and made a conscious decision to up the quality of “TNF” games.

“For this year, it felt like we were able to deliver the strongest Thursday night schedule top to bottom,” NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North said, via Awful Announcing.

Of the 16 “TNF” games that will be on Prime Video in 2024, 10 of them feature matchups where both teams either made the playoffs last season or are projected to do so this year, and only half of the games feature one team that had a below-.500 record last season.

“Our third game is Dallas at the Giants. … That is a premier, big-time, I don’t care how they’re doing, matchup,” Michaels said. “That blew me away when I saw that.”

The full “Thursday Night Football” schedule is below: