Al Michaels on Already Having Chemistry With Kirk Herbstreit: ‘I Was Very Pleasantly Surprised’

Also in Traina Thoughts: Greg Gumbel has no use for sports-talk radio; a must-see tennis shot; Jerry Seinfeld has beef and much more.

1. Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday-night package of NFL games kicks off next week. Tonight’s Bills-Rams game will air on NBC with Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth on the call.

Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit will get their season started in Week 2 with the Chargers visiting the Chiefs.

It will be the third time Michaels and Herbstreit will be in the booth together. Appearing on this week’s SI Media Podcast, Michaels revealed he and Herbstreit did a practice game during the preseason. The pair also did the Niners-Texas exhibition game Aug. 25.

“What we had done was six days before, in Los Angeles, the Rams played the Texans at SoFi. We did a telecast that went to a veritable tape machine. It didn’t go out over the air anywhere. We wanted to get the crew together, top to bottom, all the cameramen, all the tape operators, all the ancillary people who do every job imaginable on that show, I’d say about 90 to 100 people and how is this going to work. And we started to do the game and right off the bat, I felt very comfortable with Kirk.

By the end of the first quarter, I said, ‘This is really working extremely well,’ and then we did 3 1/2 quarters that night. We didn’t take the game to its conclusion because we said, ‘Hey, this is gonna work.’

We went down to Houston to do a real game—a preseason game, anyway—that went out on the air, and it felt very very comfortable.”

Michaels later added, “With Kirk, I didn’t really know him until April. And then we had a couple of days in New York together and a couple of other meals and meetings and phone calls, and I knew his rhythm and he knew mine. I don’t want to say I was shocked by it, but I was very pleasantly surprised and walked away from the booth that night saying, ‘You know, for a preseason game where you’re not talking about any strategy and it’s the Wild West in a way, and we’re going to the sideline reporter, Kaylee Hartung, a lot, it’s not like a regular-season game. But I feel really comfortable going into that Chargers-Chiefs game next week.”

I asked Michaels whether he discussed the chemistry with Herbstreit at any point.

“No. I think there was almost by osmosis a feeling, that, you don’t want to say, ‘This is fantastic; this is great,’ because we have a tendency to do that too much in this business,” said Michaels. “It was rolling along, and I think we both felt as if it was rolling along and it was good and I’ve always likened it to, the game is a melody, we provide the lyrics and the greatest songs ever recorded were songs that had the lyrics perfectly matching the melody, because if they don’t it sounds like heavy metal. I’m not saying you want to sound like Perry Como, and nobody would’ve known who Perry Como is in his audience, but you want it to flow and not sound cacophonous.

And that’s what we’re trying to do; we’re trying to blend. And the feedback I got, and naturally your friends are gonna tell you that was great, but friends that I really trust that are inside the business and know what this is about, they were pleasantly surprised, too.”

Other topics covered with Michaels during the SI Media Podcast include why Amazon won’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to broadcasting the NFL, the Thursday Night Football schedule, how he thinks Tom Brady will fare as a broadcaster, Aaron Rodgers’s personality, the growth of legalized sports betting, being part of the most memorable prank call in live TV history and much more.

And make sure you check out the "Traina Thoughts" segment of the podcast for a great giveaway courtesy of the fine folks about BradyBrand, who are providing their new Seamless Performakit shirt and underwear to lucky listeners.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

2. Speaking of the SI Media Podcast, CBS’s Greg Gumbel caused a stir when he appeared on the show in March and said nobody ever watches a sporting event on TV for the broadcasters. Gumbel is causing a stir again. This time he went on the Sports Media Watch Podcast and shared his thoughts on sports-talk radio.

Via Awful Announcing, Gumbel said, “But there apparently is a huge audience for sports-talk radio,” Gumbel continued. “Now, if you’re just tuning in to hear people argue and scream and shout, that’s fine. Good luck to you. Good luck in your early grave. Because I think it’s the most ridiculous thing on the planet. I have not heard, in my lifetime, more than an hour’s worth of sports-talk radio and most of it that I heard is basically the lead-in or the lead-out from an interview that I might have done on occasion.”

3. What is the deal ... with that trumpet guy?

4. Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner in a five-set thriller that ended at 2:50 a.m. ET this morning to advance to the U.S. Open semifinals. The highlight of Alcaraz’s 6–3, 6–7 (7), 6–7 (0), 7–5, 6–3 win came in the second set when he pulled off this amazing shot.

🫣🫣🫣 https://t.co/Tkmzzxw71a

— Carlos Alcaraz (@carlosalcaraz) September 8, 2022

Watch the U.S. Open live on ESPN with fuboTV: Start a free trial today!

And here was match point and the postmatch scene in Flushing, N.Y.

Seeing a few comments that people didn't see the end of the Alcaraz-Sinner match.

We got you 👇 pic.twitter.com/4XIBtBDUkQ

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 8, 2022

5. Saints quarterback Jameis Winston channeled his inner seventh-grade health teacher during his Wednesday session with the media.

King Jameis Winston talking about the human body is amazing pic.twitter.com/2qMGFvlJGP

— Jordan Dajani (@JordanDajani) September 7, 2022

6. Nobody in professional wrestling these days cuts a better promo than AEW’s MJF. On Wednesday night’s Dynamite, he came out and cut a babyface promo before going into his heel routine, which saw him wipe his rear end with a Josh Allen jersey, since the show was in Buffalo.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: If you need to be even more pumped up for the start of the NFL season, this video will do the trick.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.