Swifties Are Bragging That They Are The Reason NBC Dropped Al Michaels From NFL Coverage

Is Taylor Swift to blame for Al Michaels being pulled from broadcasting the upcoming NFL playoffs on NBC? If you head over to TikTok and delve into the chaotic cesspool that social media is these days, that's what some are arguing, or in many cases bragging.

Football fans and sports media were surprised earlier this week when the New York Post's Andrew Marchand reported that NBC would be dropping the legendary broadcaster from its upcoming NFL playoff slate, a job that even Michaels thought he still had.

Despite leaving NBC in 2021 to be the lead play-by-play for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video, Michaels was still contractually signed to call the playoffs and did so last year. Although he had another rough year of atrociously uncompetitive TNF games (just look at last night's debacle), Al thought that he would at least get some relief come playoff time with some solid games.

Oops.

So what changed?

Enter, Taylor Swift.

MICHAELS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PART OF THE PLAYOFFS

The new "theory" going around socials is claiming that because Michaels had previously criticized, or at the very least didn't do enough fawning over Swift's explosion onto the NFL scene during the early days of her rumored pairing with Travis Kelce, that the network pulled him.

That's right, because Mr. "Do You Believe In Miracles" supposedly threw "shade" at Swift, the networks and executives decided he had to go. They just couldn't risk pissing off Swifties.

You might recall Michaels getting in some hot water last year when he said that only teenage girls could like Taylor Swift. It didn't go over too well amongst the Swifties, with many taking to social media to criticize Michaels for daring to say anything wrong about the pop star. We even covered it here on OutKick.

SWIFTIES WILL GO AFTER ANYONE WHO GOES AGAINST HER

Then once the Taylor-Travis stuff started happening earlier this season, Michaels double-downed and really stepped in it when he said that he would be focusing on the actual football game because that's what the fans want. He likened the Swift madness to being a "sideshow" -- which while true, it's not what the bosses want their lead announcer to ever publicly admit.

“What we’re gonna do tonight, everything in moderation,” Michaels told Sports Illustrated‘s Jimmy Traina. “Our crew talked about it this morning. You can’t make a sideshow the show. The vast majority of the audience are tuning in to watch a football game. There are people, I don’t know how many, it could be a sizable number, but it’s certainly not a majority, that if you trained the camera on her all night long, they’d be satisfied with that. This is not what we’re doing to do," he continued.

Despite being right once again, this is the Swifties we're talking about. To say they can be a bit much is an understatement. Reasoning isn't something they love to do and they won't let anything or anyone stand in front of them.

IT'S A STRETCH...

NBC will now go with Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth for two of their three NFL games, while 26-year-old Noah Eagle (Ian Eagle's son) and Todd Blackedge will call the third game.

Across social media some Swifties were celebrating Michaels' demotion as if they had something to do with it.

I hate to break it to them, but it's not all about you and your Tay Tay. It's very likely that NBC watched and heard Michaels this season during the Thursday night games and realized what many others have as well - that he just seems off. Whether it's mistaken facts, or just being checked out at times, "Al isn't Al" if you would. Granted, as mentioned, the games have been trainwrecks so it's not entirely his fault, but as Imus used to tell me when I worked with him - "You're only remembered for the last thing you've done." Michaels broadcasts this year haven't been anything special.

For now it seems that Al Michaels time at NBC is officially over. He'll have two remaining TNF games this season with the Saints at the Rams and the Jets at the Browns. Both of those games should have playoff implications.

Afterwords, hopefully Michaels goes on a vacation and celebrates his legendary career. A career which includes what many consider the greatest call in the history of sports. That's something that the Swifties can't take away from him.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE REASON IS THAT AL MICHAELS IT OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS? TWEET @OUTKICK AND LET US KNOW!