Dog Invades Thursday Night Football Booth in December, Tries to Eat Al Michael’s

The Cleveland Browns beat the New York Jets in the highest-scoring, least-interesting game Thursday Night Football could muster for their season finale. For most of the game it seemed that the most interesting thing that would happen would be Al Michaels trying to keep his composure while some annoying Browns fans banged on a metal sign behind one of the end zones. But then they brought a dog into the booth. And it tried to eat Al’s candy corn. Keep in mind it’s December 28th.

While Ben the dog visited the booth for some pets, Michaels remarked that he was trying to eat his candy corn.

It’s December 28th! And Al Michaels, who will turn down a decadent sandwich if he sees something he perceives to be a vegetable, is snacking on candy vegetables. While this should be a surprise, there were actually clues dropped earlier this season about this very subject.

On October 12th, during the Kansas City Chiefs – Denver Broncos game, Al mentioned he was a fan of candy corn and a few people caught it.

Including one confused fellow voice of the NFL, Scott Hanson.

Then on October 30th NFL On Prime Video posted a TikTok where they asked everyone what the most overrated Halloween candy is. The video starts Kirk Herbstreit saying it’s candy corn and then after a title card they cut to host Charissa Thompson saying, “Al will kill me because it’s his favorite – candy corn.” Eventually, they get back to Herbstreit who reveals a shocking detail that we would or could not fully understand until tonight.

“I can’t stand candy corn. And Al, not only does he love candy corn, he actually has candy corn in a cup during every broadcast that we call.”

Now, when you hear something like this in October, you assume this is just a Halloween candy thing, but now that Michaels has revealed that he’s still consuming candy corn after Christmas, Herbstreit must have been being serious. And we should probably assume that Al has always had a cup of candy corn in the booth going back at least to the start of the 2022 NFL season. Which begs the question – how long has Al Michaels been eating candy corn while calling games?

Is this something John Madden experienced? Did Al share with Dan Dierdorf and Frank Gifford? Did any candy corn spill when the earthquake hit the 1989 World Series? Do you believe in candy corn at the Miracle on Ice? Or is this just a new habit he picked up in his later years? Honestly, it might explain some things.