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Amazon has exclusive rights to the 15-game Thursday Night Football schedule in 2022 and now it appears they’ve got their analyst for the game, Kirk Herbstreit, per NBC Sports’ Peter King. Herbstreit will still do his college work for ESPN while working on Thursday nights.
The real question now is who will do play-by-play for TNF? Al Michaels appeared to be the guy, but Joe Buck is in the running as well. Longtime Fox NFL analyst Troy Aikman has moved over to ESPN for Monday Night Football, but they are still looking for a play-by-play man as well, with Michaels and Buck both in the conversation.
If Buck were to move to ESPN, we’d be greeted with the familiar Fox duo in Aikman and Buck once again. The pairing would make sense, as the team wouldn’t need viewers to get used to a new dynamic in the MNF booth yet again.
Herbstreit and Michaels for TNF and Buck and Aikman for MNF make sense and Sunday Night Football will likely pair Cris Collinsworth with another play-by-play voice. That could be Mike Tirico, who has filled in for Michael on his off days. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out in the end, but there will be changes to your NFL viewing experience in 2022.