AL MICHAELS

I think the Cowboys are one of only two teams in all of sports that engender love and hate to that extreme. The other is the Yankees. You love the Yankees or you hate the Yankees.

When it comes down to it, I'm thinking about football all the time. When I'm on the golf course, I'm thinking about it. It's never out of your brain.

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, is right there... she's in town because her father was at Johnson Smith College... and she was delivering a speech there.

I did the 1972 Sapporo Games, and I was also the Reds announcer and was folded into the NBC coverage for the 1972 World Series. I also did the 1979 World Series for ABC.

It's funny, but when there are dominant teams, there are a number of people who rail about the fact that they're always seeing the Dallas Cowboys or the San Francisco 49ers or the Green Bay either in the playoffs or in the Super Bowl.

I will never repeat something verbatim on the air unless I know it's accurate. And when you go to the source, sometimes there's a better story beyond the original story. That happens all the time.

The game is No. 1. You are an adjunct to the game. In a studio, there is no game. You are the star. That's why you are there. For the game, you can't go away from the game and beat your chest. People are there to watch the game. You are there to supplement, not to override or overwhelm.

You either go through your life working for someone and getting a paycheck - and it can be a damn good paycheck, and I am not complaining as someone who has always been a salaried employee - or you can go out and become an entrepreneur.

People know me from a hockey game, from an earthquake, from the O.J case.

If I see something dubious, say on a blog or a Web site, and I don't see it anywhere else, I'll just go right to the source and check it out.

When dealing in the technology, it becomes a question of whether you overuse something. I think that's worse than having something technologically available to you and not using it.

But we're not supposed to talk anything besides football.

The Miami Dolphins have to be taken seriously. Here's a team that seems to be jelling.

Living here in southern California, I'll miss hearing Rocky Top for an entire week at the end of December. I was actually looking forward to it. Tennessee has a better fight song than Nebraska.

I still believe Emmitt has enough left in the tank to be a productive back over the next couple of seasons.

Monday Night Football started in 1970, and when it started, it was something extremely special because sports had not been aired in prime time. So, it was a novelty, and a lot of people thought it wouldn't work, and, of course, it worked spectacularly well.

I've always felt that I'm in a spontaneous business and if you script something, if you plan something, it will sound that way.

Nobody wants to see teams out of contention showcased in December and January. I'm sure this is something that will be discussed again this off-season.

If there are dominant teams, people enjoy discussing whether that's good or bad for the game, and if there aren't any dominant teams, then people enjoy discussing that.

Any time a running back reaches the age of 31 or 32, he has to lose a step. No one is a freak of nature. No one is going to be able to take the pounding a running back has to take over a 10- or 12-year career and not lose a step.

It was the Buffalo Bills at the Minnesota Vikings on NBC. It went to about five markets.

Those three words, Monday Night Football, resonate like no other.

We live in this world of tweeting, and social media, and anti-social media, and all the rest, so no matter what you say, there is going to be what people say is a firestorm. I don't know what a firestorm is.

I've always felt that the game itself is pretty much a melody and I am there to provide the lyrics. You want the lyrics to match the melody, because if you are composing a song or recording a song, it's cacophonous if they don't match.

Do you believe in miracles?