Al Michaels Is Fired Up For This Year's Thursday Night Football Schedule After Last Year's Brutal Slate

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Amazon Prime's inaugural season streaming Thursday Night Football was less than stellar after being handed some pretty poor matchups. While it couldn't have gotten worse, the 2023 TNF slate is more than promising, and Al Michaels is very excited about that.

The first TNF game of the year will take place in Week 2 when the Minnesota Vikings visit Philadelphia to take on the Eagles. Other notable Thursday night matchups include Giants-49ers, Bucs-Bills, Panthers-Bears, Bengals-Ravens, and the first-ever Black Friday game that'll feature the Dolphins and Jets.

READ: EXAMINING THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE THE NFL SCHEDULE PRESENTS EACH NFL TEAM

Sports Illustrated's Jimmy Traina spoke with Michaels to get his reaction to the '23 slate, and the longtime broadcaster seemed to be relieved with the solid schedule of games.

"Absolutely” Al Michaels said. “Love the way we come out of the gate. Three ‘A’ grade games. Two Aaron Rodgers games. Baltimore-Cincinnati, another good one. League did us a solid."

“I was raring to go the minute I saw the whole slate. Already thinking of storylines for each game, of which there is no shortage.”

Michaels has already circled the Miami-New York matchup on Black Friday as well.

“Tens of millions recovering from the prior day’s tryptophan hangover will love it. Rodgers-Tua, a marquee matchup on any day," he explained.

It's quite the change in tune from the veteran after comparing calling Amazon's bad games last season to selling used cars.

Michaels will have plenty of time to get his storylines in order as we unfortunately still have four months until the first Thursday night game of the 2023-24 campaign.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.