Veteran broadcaster Al Michaels made it no secret he was frustrated by the sloppy, slow-moving first half of the Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants ‘Thursday Night Football’ game.
In particular, the Amazon Prime play-by-play broadcaster voiced his disdain for the amount of penalties called by Clay Martin’s crew over the first 30 minutes.
The Cowboys and Giants were whistled for a combined 12 infractions in the first half, but flags hit the field more often than that. The officials picked up a couple of flags and had some instances of offsetting penalties, creating many stoppages throughout the first half.
By the two-minute warning, an annoyed Michaels was cracking jokes to color commentator Kirk Herbstreit about the sheer number of flags they had witnessed in the first half.
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‘It looks like June 14th out here, otherwise known as Flag Day, as you know,’ Michaels quipped before saying Martin ‘looked like a referee straight out of central casting.’
Michaels became increasingly disenchanted as the half dragged on. He initially sounded excited when Giants edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux jumped offside on a third-and-12, but the life came out of his voice as more infractions were called on the play.
‘We’ve got another flag. You have two more flags in the backfield. No more laundry left,’ Michaels said, exasperatedly. ‘And any number of calls coming your way.’
Martin then announced that there were fouls on both teams during the play. Michaels’ response?
‘I’ll bet,’ he said.
Michaels’ sass didn’t stop there. When the Cowboys were whistled for a false start before a punt with 14 seconds left in the half, Herbstreit asked if that foul was the eighth of the half on Dallas.
‘No, it’s the 147th,’ Michaels responded, eliciting a laugh from his partner.
Herbstreit decided to continue to prod Michaels to discuss the penalties. He asked if Michaels had ever seen that many penalties called in a single half in his career.
The veteran broadcaster thought it was, in fact, a record for a game that he called.
‘You’re going to need some new flags to throw in the second half,’ Michaels joked. ‘These ones are filthy.’
Michaels continued to bemoan the state of the game throughout the second half. He expressed amazement that the first penalty of the third quarter wasn’t called until the 5:20 mark and was surprised that the Giants had been called for just four penalties early in the fourth quarter.