Al Michaels' Hated Vegetable Ranking Prompted—and Answered—Some Questions

When you think of game-day snacks, foods like nachos and wings probably spring to the front of your mind. Ahead of Week 10's Thursday Night Football game, though, vegetables stepped into the NFL spotlight.

More specifically, Al Michaels' most-hated vegetables stepped into the spotlight.

Yes, you read that correctly. Ahead of a (presumably) dull game between the Carolina Panthers and the Chicago Bears, Amazon brought out the big guns: a list of the veggies that their legendary play-by-play man dislikes the most.

Michaels Picked His 5 Least Favorite Veggies

In the world of sports, power rankings and other lists are simply part of the furniture. Whether you're scrolling through social media or sitting at the bar, talking about the best (or worst) of something is always fair game.

Those discussions, however, usually focus on players or teams. Ahead of Week 10, Amazon Prime called an audible.

On Wednesday, the brand took to social media and shared Michaels' least favorite vegetables. The veteran broadcaster has voiced his opinions on veggies before—we'll get to that shortly—so the topic wasn't completely out of left field.

So, what were his least favorites? From five through one, Michaels named mushrooms, onions, broccoli, spinach and asparagus.

Newsweek has reached out to Prime Video for further information.

That's all good social media fun, right? Well, the list prompted some questions about Michaels' culinary past.

Michaels Has Never Knowingly Eaten Vegetables

During an interview with CNN's Chris Wallace, Michaels went as far as admitting that he never has knowingly eaten a vegetable in his life.

"That is true," Michaels said. "I was born when my parents were 18. My mother hadn't even read Dr. Spock at that point. So, she just let me have the run of the course, and I always pushed the vegetables away. To this day, no. And I guess what I've proven, Chris, is that man does not need vegetables to survive."

And those weren't isolated comments. In a Defector story, for example, Michaels told Drew Magary that he would even have a burger replated if it initially came with a leaf of lettuce on it. The piece also revealed that Michaels' wife, Linda, tried to get him to eat vegetables but eventually gave up.

With those on the record, Michaels' ranking raises some questions. If he's never knowingly eaten a vegetable, how did he compose his list? Did he judge by smell? Or was he working from how he simply felt about each plant?

That was even noted on ESPN's Around the Horn.

Alternatively, we can focus on the idea of knowingly eating something. While it's possible that he might have accidentally had a mushroom or a sliver of onion, the other choices seem a bit more noticeable. Eating asparagus, for example, without realizing seems a bit more far-fetched.

Thankfully, we have an answer. On X, formerly Twitter, Amazon's Amy Palcic shared Michaels' list with the note that the vegetables were ranked based on how unappealing they look.

That raises some more questions—what's visually unappealing about an onion, for example?—but it's possible that we'll get additional answers on Thursday night.

While anything can happen on the gridiron, the Panthers and the Bears will probably provide plenty of opportunity for other topics of discussion.