Photo: The Ringer

Football fans were dealt a fatal blow on Tuesday as NBC announced Al Michaels will not be a part of their NFL playoff coverage.

While Michaels primarily worked as the play-by-play man on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night games the past few seasons, he held some kind of weird “emeritus” status with NBC that allowed him to cover playoff games.

Listen…we all lose a step eventually. Al Michaels is no different, but he’s arguably the best ever at what he does. We all know about the USA Hockey call, he was light years ahead on gambling, and, most importantly, the man has never eaten a vegetable and looks fantastic.

The move “apparently caught [Michaels] off guard,” which seems fair. How much more can these corporate fat cats at NBC and Amazon push our boy until he falls off the cliff?

For a guy who sounds like a 80 year old Kermit the Frog, we leave you with a full show support for our guy with a very fitting quote from Muppets from Space:

“He’s one of us. And no matter what happens, no matter what obstacles we face, we never forget one of our own.”