Confirmed: Al Michaels Has An Entire Fine Dining Experience In The Booth During Halftime Of His Football Broadcasts

Cooper Neill. Getty Images.

On today's Pardon My Take… KIRK HERBSTREIT! One of the best football broadcasters out there joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter on today's show to review his first season calling the NFL, his crazy travel schedule, the CFP National Championship Game, and much more.

With the first year of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime in the books, Herbstreit has completed his first full season's worth of games with the legendary Al Michaels. And with that, we got the opportunity to ask Herbstreit if a particular habit regarding his partner's eating schedule was true or not. The answer was revealed on today's show…

Mr. Commenter: With Al, we heard a rumor, I'm not sure if it's true or not, maybe you shed some light on it… that he eats a full meal during games sometimes. Is that true?

Kirk Herbstreit: (laughing) Who'd you hear that from?!

Mr. Commenter: I forget.

Mr. Cat: We might have made it up.

Mr. Commenter: And maybe we just repeated it.

Mr. Cat: Like I always just envisioned when he was calling a game on Thursday night, he's got like a nice steak, couple sides…

Mr. Commenter: Yeah, red wine.

Mr. Cat: He's just, like, calling it, and then he's just taking a bite, and then he's back to the game. 

Kirk Herbstreit: Two things there - number one: he will not, if a vegetable gets near him, he'll put a fork through your hand. It's not, like, cute - he doesn't eat vegetables of any kind, that's number one. Number two: and I thought that was just something you read about, no that's 100% true. Number two: I work on a Saturday night show that when halftime comes, they might throw you a bag of Cheese-It, or maybe a sandwich from a local place downstairs, that's what I'm used to. 

Kirk Herbstreit: This dude… we get to halftime, I assume it's him, he's got steak, shrimp, he doesn't touch the mashed potatoes, but… and they've got like real silverware and a plate, and you only have eight minutes in halftime in the NFL, but as soon as halftime's over, headphones are off, back behind the screen, and they've got a table set, and it's like fine dining for eight minutes, and it' just, he's eating and talking, and it blew me away. I was not expecting that, I had never heard that the way you guys have.

Mr. Commenter: i'm so happy to hear that.

Mr. Cat: Yeah, this made my day. This made my day that this has happened.

Mr. Commenter: I envision that he has a nice tablecloth with like a candle.

Mr. Cat: Yeah, he opens the sheet and it's the Titanic behind him.

Kirk Herbstreit: Dude, the only thing missing is a candle. I'm going to bring that next year, everything else, tablecloth… I'm like, "I guess we're going to a dinner back here."

Advertisement

Al Michaels: an absolute LEGEND! Personally, I couldn't handle a full meal in the middle of a game. Wayyy too risky. But he has been doing it this whole time, and you would never know that he is eating a steak at halftime. Love it.