While the Olympics should have been the big news of the last week, there was some NFL news that got a lot more attention. Mike Tirico was in Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics as part of NBC's coverage —- since he works for them now —- but won't be allowed on the broadcast for Thursday Night Football for NBC.
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When the NFL agreed to the rights for the broadcasts on Thursday and Sunday it did so with Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth in mind, not knowing or having any clue that Tirico would defect to NBC. Most people framed it as the NFL didn't think Tirico was good enough to work Thursday nights, but in reality the league just had a deal in place already and Tirico wasn't a part of it.
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Tirico knows about all of this and thought he would be clever with Dan Patrick as they did a side-by-side segment during the Olympics. When Patrick asked him about his sickly green pocket square, Tirico answered back with what he thought was a pretty good quip:
.@miketirico with the HAYMAKER. pic.twitter.com/jGlvWYEovq
— Andrew Stilwell (@stilwell) August 21, 2016
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Awful Announcing read is that this was a bit scripted with Dan being in on the joke lobbing it up for Tirico to basically say, "Have fun doing football this fall, which it looks like I won't be doing." It should be fun to see if there's any discipline for this considering how sensitive the NFL is about these things.
[h/t Awful Announcing]
