Exclusive | Why Al Michaels thinks the NFL gave Amazon a much better ‘TNF’ slate

Al Michaels has gone from griping about the product the NFL gave Amazon for “Thursday Night Football” two years ago to gushing about this season’s schedule. 

The “TNF” package on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service kicks off on Thursday as the Dolphins host the Bills in a matchup of AFC East rivals who both have plausible Super Bowl aspirations. 

In a recent conversation with The Post, Michaels, who calls “TNF” alongside Kirk Herbstreit, theorized that the NFL beefed up the quality of their schedule this year as the league continues to spread its wings with streaming. 

“Early on, the first year, it was not so much my displeasure with the actual schedule, but the way the games were turning out. We had that Indianapolis-Denver game and a Washington-Chicago game and they were not games that will ever be remembered by NFL Films,” Michaels said. 

“Last year was considerably better, and this year is even better than that — by far the best of all, and I think a lot of it has to do with where the business is right now. Streaming is more and more important.” 

Last season, Michaels noted, the NFL gave NBC’s Peacock the Dolphins-Chiefs matchup for its streaming-exclusive playoff game, arguably the marquee matchup of the weekend given the star power with Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill. 

This season, in addition to running back its Black Friday game, which will be Raiders-Chiefs on Nov. 29, Amazon will have its first playoff game, in the wild-card round on Jan. 11 or 12. 

Other regular-season games on Prime Video include Cowboys-Giants, Texans-Jets, Packers-Lions, Bengals-Ravens and Rams-49ers. 

Twelve of the 17 games are divisional matchups, and even games that might look like lemons on paper, like Saints-Broncos, have storylines like Sean Payton’s return to New Orleans. 

“The league now understands that this is the direction the business is going,” Michaels said. “How fast it gets there, I don’t know.” 

He pointed out that Netflix’s Christmas doubleheader is another sign of the league’s movement to airing games exclusively on streaming platforms. 

“The graph is pointing up for streaming, and I don’t want to say down for linear because the NFL is so powerful right now and linear is still very, very important, but a lot of eggs are going in the streaming basket right now,” Michaels said. 

Michaels also believes that another factor in the strong schedule was that the NFL now has confidence in Amazon to produce the games with a high standard. 

Michaels revealed that two NBA owners called him and told him that Amazon’s game and studio production of “TNF” was a factor in their intention to move to Prime Video from TNT. 

(He recognized that Amazon’s reported $1.8 billion annual bid was also important.) 

Michaels’ contract with Amazon is expiring after this season and he opened up to The Post about how he sees his future. 

“The reality is, I’ve trained myself to live in the present. I have for a long period of time. I don’t like to go into the past. People love to hear stories about the old days — I’m bored with it,” Michaels said. 

“Down the line, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does. Right now I feel great. I’m looking forward to the start of the season. I’ve made no decision in terms of what will happen in the future. I suspect that some time during the year I’ll have a better feeling of what it’s like. But my feeling is, if I can live up to the standard I expect from myself, then I’ll want to continue. If I can’t, then I’ll have to think about it another way. I don’t want to go out, as Howard Cosell used to say, ‘a shadow of your former self.’ ”