John Madden

John Madden
John Earl Madden is a former American football player in the National Football League, a former Super Bowl-winning head coach with the Oakland Raiders in the American Football Conference of the NFL, and a former color commentator for NFL telecasts. In 2006, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his coaching career. He is also widely known for the long-running Madden NFL video game series he has endorsed and fronted since 1988. Madden worked...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntertainer
Date of Birth10 April 1936
CountryUnited States of America
I've got five grandkids. They play baseball, they play football, they play basketball. I go to all the games. You always have that urge to say something when you're watching them. But I've learned to keep it to myself. I've blurted out some things and embarrassed myself.
I tried golf for a while, but I wasn't very good at it, so I didn't play a lot of golf. I enjoy all sports, not just football. I like basketball, baseball, and I got into the World Cup. So really, sports in general are my life, and football specifically.
I have this set-up at my house where I have one big movie theater screen that's 9 ft. by 16 ft. Then, I have nine 63-inch monitors around it; four on either side and one underneath. So I get all nine one o'clock games, and I can switch them onto the big screen. That's what I do on the Sundays during the season.
I don't know that the referee can be watching holding on the offensive line and get back to the quarterback. I think watching the quarterback is a full-time job.
Having been in football all my life as a player and a coach and having been on the sideline, I think the closer we can get to bringing people what it's like standing and watching the game on the sideline, with a better view, would be the perfect situation for television football.
We need to let the referee's sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says 'knockdowns.' Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it's legal, we'll make excuses for them.
Al Davis has been the biggest influence in my professional football life. I mean, he was a guy that gave me an opportunity, one, to get into professional football in 1967 as an assistant coach, and then at the age of 32, giving me the opportunity to be the head coach.
Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else. To me, it was important to be able to chew out a player for screwing up and for him to accept it because he knew I liked him anyway.
Any defensive coordinator is worried about two things: a running quarterback and a deep ball. You know, don't get beat deep and don't let the quarterback run, because a big part of your defense can't account for the quarterback as a runner, so he gets a free run.
When Art walks in here, he knows what it is. He doesn't have to learn the nuances. He'll learn the coaches, the players and the football. The two of them, that's why this is going to work.
A lot of guys took it personally, myself included. I wasn't playing my best hockey at the time and we have a chance to redeem ourselves and pay Larry back in a way.
I think the biggest difference is Marty has been a little bit sharper the last couple of games. At key moments he's held us in the game and given us a chance to win and we're going to need that if we're going to go far in the playoffs.
I was asked to do a (film) production of the play in London, it popped into my head suddenly that it would be a great part for Gwyneth to play. It's a great role, ... Obviously for me Gwyneth's performance is a definitive one and an extraordinary one.
I think they caught us at the end of a long trip. We didn't really have our legs in the third period, but we stuck with it and overcame a little bit of adversity. At the beginning of the (season) I think we would have collapsed a little bit.