Al Michaels drops the loose comparison to Aaron Hernandez during the Raiders-Chiefs season

Broadcasters compare current athletes to players of the past, which is probably the case every single game.

But generally, announcers don’t mention the names of controversial figures when making such comparisons. Al Michaels apparently doesn’t care.

During the Black Friday NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders on Amazon Prime Video, Michaels decided to comment on the Chiefs’ tight end duo of Travis Kelce and Noah Gray. However, surprisingly, the legendary NFL broadcaster decided to compare the Chiefs’ sophomore tight end to former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez while playing alongside Rob Gronkowski.

Al Michaels drops a casual comparison to Aaron Hernandez when talking about Chiefs TE Noah Gray pic.twitter.com/hbFkA4JlXR

– Awful Announcement (@awfulanncreasing) November 29, 2024

“Mahomes, to the end zone and incomplete. This time was meant for Noah Gray. Speaking of him, the other tight end. You know, Kirk (Herbstreit), I think back to using the two tight ends, it reminds me of when Bill Belichick had (Rob) Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. And he kind of changed everything when he ran the offense through those two guys about a decade ago.”

From a pure X’s and O’s perspective, Michaels made a legitimate comparison. But bringing up a player with Hernandez’s story should probably be avoided, if only to avoid reminding viewers of the horrific circumstances surrounding the former Patriot, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2017 , in which he served his sentence for the first time -degree murder.

The line to such references is certainly quite gray. An announcer who compared a current quarterback to Michael Vick, for example, would not be met with criticism. And rightly so. Vick’s situation is completely different and comparing a current player to him would simply bring back memories of his legendary runs and huge arm.

But at some point it’s best to avoid controversial numbers. Hernandez probably falls into that category.

(Terrible announcement on X)