John Madden Quotes
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Justin Smith was one of the most underrated players in the NFL for what he did. He would sacrifice and do the dirty work, then someone else would clean up off it.
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It's been the video game ever since I got out of coaching. Even when I was an announcer, fewer and fewer people remembered me as 'Coach,' and as the years went on, people just started knowing me from the game.
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I'd like to work with kids in special education - younger kids.
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I'm not afraid of flying; I just fear I'm going to die. I think I'm - vulnerable. I admit it. I don't fly. I got claustrophobia. I don't go in high buildings. I don't do those things. I'm just myself, whatever that is.
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Since 1981, I've spent every Thanksgiving Day broadcasting a game, and it is one of my favorite days. You can say, 'Woe is me, I never get to be part of the tradition,' or you can say, 'Heck, we've got our own tradition, and it's pretty good.'
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The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.
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People say, 'Is broadcasting the same as coaching?' I say, 'Hell, no.' Coaching, you win and lose. Broadcasting, you don't win and lose. Coaching was a lot bigger than broadcasting.
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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.
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Any time you get a new running back, whether it's a rookie or hasn't played a lot, that's the first thing you test, is their pass protection. That's big.
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To me, discipline in football occurs on the field, not off it.
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When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a game for computers.
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Trip Hawkins - and this was the early 1980s - was saying there's going to be a day when everyone has a computer and they're going to want to do more on it, including playing games. So he started up a company, EA Sports, and he was going to have three games, football, basketball and baseball. So I was the football game.
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Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to see and listen to what they don't want to hear.
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Baseball has better opening days and All-Star Games than the N.F.L. does. Ours stink.
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If you win a Super Bowl before you're fired, you're a genius, and everyone listens to you. But a coach is just a guy whose best class in grammar school was recess and whose best class in high school was P.E. I never thought I was anything but a guy whose best class was P.E.
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The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.
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In all the years that I've been in football - I went directly from coaching to broadcasting - I never really had a lot of experience watching it.
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I was in New York on September 11 when those planes hit the World Trade Center. At the time, it seemed like it was a local thing. But three or four days later, by the time we drove across the country in the bus, we realized it wasn't a local thing. You could really feel the states become united. We became the United States of America.
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Thursday night football is here to stay. So we're looking at ways to make it safer. Now they're playing division games, so you limit travel. Now the question is, should you play Sunday night before a Thursday night?
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Discipline is knowing what you're supposed to do and doing it as best you can... On third down and short yardage, the Raiders don't jump offside. That's discipline - not a coat and tie, not a clean shave.
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The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
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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.
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Even when I was a little kid, I hated to dress up. I hated to put on regular shoes. I wanted to play all the time. I hate to wear any kind of coat or sweater. I've never liked hot. I've never liked to be warm.
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I was an old tackle riding around talking to people about sports. Like I've said to a lot of people over the years, 'I only go where old tackles go, and if an old tackle does not belong there, I'm not going.'