John Madden

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.

When people watch football, they're looking for fun things.

There's so many kids who only know me from the video game. And they want to know if I'm home - and if I have a video game I can give them on Halloween. And sometimes they're surprised to learn there actually is a 'Madden.'

I never watched TV because I was always doing a game. I didn't have any experience to be home watching games. I didn't know how to do it. Brent Musburger and those guys could sit and watch every game and know the scores. And I was amazed and said, 'I'd like to have something like that someday.'

I like to hear about what people do. That's more interesting than talking about what the hell I do.

I would never bet against Peyton Manning. You know about the age and the neck and the strength. But I had George Blanda, and as he got older, he got smarter, and he just got rid of the ball quicker. I watch Peyton, and I see George Blanda.

One of the biggest gaps in sports is the difference between the winning and losing teams of the Super Bowl. They don't invite the losing team to the White House. They don't have parades for them. They don't throw confetti on them.

Nothing jazzes me up like football. I've acquired more passion of the years, not less. Not to love it wouldn't make sense.

In Oakland, Al Davis was a genius. We had Ron Wolff there, too, and he was a genius. There was no room for me to be a genius.

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.

Baseball has better opening days and All-Star Games than the N.F.L. does. Ours stink.

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.

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.

If someone remembers me as a coach, they still call me 'Coach,' but if they know me for the video game, they just call me 'Madden.'

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.

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.

I've never eaten just a few bites of things I liked in my life.

We need the quarterbacks. It's a passing league and a quarterback-driven league. We need the Peyton Mannings in football uniforms out there playing - the Tom Bradys, the Drew Breeses, the Philip Riverses - we need those guys instead of them standing on the sideline.

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.

They're on the right road, but there's a long way to go on concussions, not only in the NFL, but college football, high school football and all football.

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.

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.

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.'

I was a coach, and I put a lot of education and experience into coaching.

I respect coaches; I respect what good coaches do. I know that you don't learn to be a coach in an hour and a half.

Jim Harbaugh has done a great job of coaching in the NFL no matter how you put it.

There's so many kids who only know me from the video game.

You wouldn't do something for a receiver to catch the ball if the quarterback couldn't throw it.

Nobody, not even the head coach, would do anything to a football unilaterally, such as adjust the amount of pressure in a ball, without the quarterback not knowing. It would have to be the quarterback's idea.

The thing that I always respected about Bruce Arians was, when he was at Pittsburgh, he let Ben Roethlisberger decide what he liked. I used to do that. You can put something in and force-feed it to a quarterback. But if he doesn't like it and have his heart in it, it's not going to be as good as when he really likes something.

The quarterback has to get rid of the ball quickly, so there's not a lot of time to make moves to gain separation.

I was introduced to the Turducken in New Orleans. And it wasn't Thanksgiving. Glenn at the Gourmet Butcher Block brought it by, and I had never heard of it or had seen one, and they put it in the booth, and it smelled so good that I had to taste it. And it was good. Then Thanksgiving came, and we got one in addition to the traditional turkey.

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.

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.

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.

I never professed to be perfect. I do something wrong or something stupid, I laugh at myself.

It takes about three times as long to explain to someone why you won't give them an autograph as it does to actually give them an autograph.

Sometimes you can be one of the best, but you don't accept that if you don't get the ring or win the Super Bowl. There's a lot of good teams between the Super Bowl winner and other teams. Once the Super Bowl is over, we lump everyone into the other 31, and that's not fair.

A consulting position might work in another profession, but not in pro football. There's no such thing. They give a guy a parking spot and put his name up as a consultant, and in six months, they erase the name.

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.'

I would never be one to critique the announcers when I watched games. I try to watch the play and listen to the broadcasters and what they are pointing out. I was never one to say this one was good or bad.

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?

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.

The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.

To me, discipline in football occurs on the field, not off it.

I'm a firm believer that there's no way that a six-year-old should have a helmet on and learn a tackling drill.

If you think about it, I've never held a job in my life. I went from being an NFL player to a coach to a broadcaster. I haven't worked a day in my life.

Every time I go to the theater, there's something about the atmosphere, seeing something unfold live in front of an audience, that you can't get out of your system.

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.

It's a lot easier to get a suit than it is to get a coach.