NBC passes on Al Michaels, 26-year-old Noah Eagle gets playoff play-by-play gig

Field Level Media|published: Tue 12th December, 12:43 2023

Longtime voice of primetime NFL games Al Michaels is not part of NBC's postseason plans. credits: George Walker IV / Tennessean.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

NBC plans to use 26-year-old Noah Eagle as the play-by-play voice for its No. 2 NFL playoff broadcast crew in January, passing on venerable voice Al Michaels.

NBC "Sunday Night Football" tandem Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth have the call of the network's primary playoff broadcast next month, but NBC declined to bring back Michaels for the second game. Instead, the college football broadcast team of Eagle and Todd Blackledge with sideline reporter Kathryn Tappen was assigned the No. 2 game.

Michaels, 79, reportedly earns $1 million per game in an agreement with Amazon that affords him the opportunity to accept assignments from NBC in his "emeritus" label granted when he left at the end of his last contract in 2022.

Michaels and Tony Dungy called the AFC wild-card game in Jacksonville last year, when the Jaguars rallied from a 27-point deficit to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers.

Eagle is the son of Ian Eagle, an established play-by-play announcer for CBS, TBS and TNT, working college basketball, NBA and NFL games. Noah Eagle replaced Ian Eagle on YES Network NBA broadcasts this season.

Noah Eagle, Blackledge and Tappen are also assigned to the NBC regular-season broadcast of Steelers-Bengals on Dec. 23 and the Nickelodeon kid-focused broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11.

Michaels has been the voice of primetime NFL coverage since 1986, first on "Monday Night Football" until he took the "Sunday Night Football" job alongside John Madden in 2006. He worked in the SNF role until the end of the 2021 season.

He currently calls Thursday night games streamed on Amazon Prime Video with analyst Kirk Herbstreit.

—Field Level Media