At the start of his first game of the season, Al Michaels focuses only on the present

The legendary Al Michaels begins his latest regular season on Thursday night, which will end with Amazon’s first playoff game.

Will this competition in early January be Michaels’ last appearance?

“The reality is, I have trained myself to live in the present”, Michaels told Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post“I’ve had that for a long time. I don’t like to dwell on the past. People like to hear stories about the old days – I get bored with it.”

He is not bored with his current job. But now that he is entering the final year of his contract, he is not thinking about next year.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future,” Michaels said. “Nobody knows. Right now I feel great. I’m excited for the season to start. What’s going to happen in the future, I haven’t decided yet. I suspect that at some point during the year I’ll have a better feel for what it’s like. But I feel like if I can reach the standard that I expect of myself, then I want to keep going. If not, then I’ll have to reconsider. I don’t want to go out, as Howard Cosell always said, ‘a shadow of my former self.'”

Michaels said last year that he doesn’t want a farewell tour. He doesn’t want it to be about him; he never has. So even if he’s thinking about walking off into the sunset after the upcoming season, he’s unlikely to say a word about it until it’s time for him to simply and decisively say, “It’s time.”

It’s very hard to imagine watching NFL games without him. Don’t think about it. Think about enjoying the comfort of his voice once it becomes familiar and iconic.

We’ll all hear it again tomorrow night when the Dolphins host the Bills in a key early-season game that features plenty of action, drama and (hopefully) points.