RIP John Madden
It’s impossible to sum up John Madden in a single post so I won’t even try. I’m not sure there is a person out there that is more important to the entire sport than Madden. Genuinely. He wasn’t a coach for very long, but he was a legendary coach even to this day. He was the voice of football for 30 years. The video game he lent his likeness to and helped get made is arguably the most important sports game ever made, and is now the flagship video game for football. He was instantly recognizable in any setting with his booming voice and his enormous frame. Other people may have played a role in making football the institution it is today, but I think from a cultural perspective, John Madden is it. He’s the guy. John Madden is football.
I only really knew him as an announcer. I grew up in the 90’s and he was just the voice on TV. He was funny and would draw penises by accident on his screen while explaining routes. He just sounded like a jolly giant of a person and no story I can find of the guy makes it seem like he was anything other than just a great dude. It’s telling when someone like that passes. I’m a heavy twitter user (not recommended, it is hellsite) and anytime a celebrity dies you’ll find a legion of the contrarian types who want attention so they make a point to talk about the bad stuff that celebrity is at fault for. Madden had none. Nobody pointing out that oh, he hit his wife once or something. The worst takes I saw were that his involvement in the video game franchise helped normalize concussions, which is a galaxy brain stretch of a take to have. Again, if you are not already on twitter, do not use twitter. It shatters your brain. The point is, John Madden seems like a legend that deserves to be the legend he is.
He’s been out of the general public eye since he left broadcasting and the booth is worse without him. For all his quirks that people would make fun of (his love of food, the drawn penises, the BOOMs), he was genuinely great at communicating how the game worked to people. Sure, once you understood football on a deeper level it could seem a little rudimentary as commentary, but we were all a novice once, and Madden probably did more to help America understand football than anyone else did.
Rest in peace, John. We are going to remember you for a long, long time.
You missed that he had a hand in inventing the on-screen First Down Line. He was analysing a play on the telestrator, and mused that it would be handy if the First Down threshold was on screen all the time.
Whether video games came up with it first or not, I’m not sure (I remember the High Impact Football coin-op from Midway had it in the early 90s), but the above scenario is goofy enough to fit his legacy.
The non-football thing I will remember Madden for is that he is the voice of Garfield we could have had if Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray weren’t around.
Man I didn’t even know that he helped invent the first down marker, incredible
Loved the Turducken sitting on the table. Only thing that would have made the whole comic even better would have been a can of Tinactin.
R.I.P. Coach Madden
I won’t lie, this made me tear up a little.
Madden always thought of himself as a coach first and foremost, and in a lot of ways, that’s what he was even in the booth.
R.I.P. Coach.
Boom! This might be the greatest comic you’ve ever done.
Back in my childhood, Madden came out on the Genesis a year or two before showing up on the SNES, and since I owned the SNES, I had to play garbage like Super Play Action Football. *shudders* Played a lot of Madden ’94 on my buddy’s Genesis, but it wasn’t until ’97 when Madden hit the PC that I finally purchased a copy. I miss him and Pat doing the voicework.
I remember him most as the name of the licensed video game. Sadly, I was 2 years old the same year he retired, so i never got to watch him as a broadcaster.
Also he only won one super bowl as a head coach.
dude can literally claim he won a super bowl 11% of his head coaching seasons and internet guy here still wants to “well actually”
The guy went 1-6 in AFC championships games; Don’t take this the wrong way, he is one of the greatest coaches of all time; but he is the OG Andy Reid; he couldn’t win in the big game. Plus his successor Tom Flores won more Super Bowls than he did.
Considering he had to deal with the Steel Curtain defence of Pittsburgh, even winning one Super Bowl in the 70s was an achievement. The Raiders probably would have won about 6 in a row, if not for the Steelers.
They would have not won 6 in a row both Dolphins and Cowboys were better during that time period; but yes the Steel Curtain was the perfect kryptonite to the Raiders Smash Mouth offense.
John Madden was like a high school science teacher. He got the broad concepts across to everyone, and taught pretty much all anyone really needed to know to follow along in-depth; and for some of us he lit a spark that led us to learn more and learn deeper.
Regardless if he didn’t get into the nuts and bolts of the game on air, like Romo, or drill really deep into the concepts like someone like Syed Schemes, being that first person to really get you interested in learning the deeper complexities is at least as important, if not moreso.
RIP, and one last time, Thanks John.
I’ve been a high school science teacher for 13 years. First time anyone compared me to Madden. I’ll take it! 🙂
I loved Romo’s tribute to Madden during the Chiefs-Bengals game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEC3q-Z7_w
Madden’s willingness to work for fledgling Fox when they snatched the NFC broadcasts away from CBS (even turning down Howard Cosell’s one-time seat at Monday Night Football in the process) was likely critical in making Fox’s coverage an instant ratings and critical success rather than simply a lesson to the then-Big Three that they needed to back up the Brinks truck for the NFL. One could argue that John Madden is a big reason that Fox is a major TV network and not a slightly more successful CW.
Of course, hearing his digitized voice shout “BOOM! He flattened him like a pancake!” while playing Madden ’94 is what I’ll probably remember the most about Madden… but his impact on football is going to be felt for as long as anyone can reasonably see into its future.
The other big reason that Fox is a major TV network is The Simpsons.
I’m almost 49. Just missed him at Oakland. But I definitely remember him for Lite Beer.
https://youtu.be/IJ11QN1jAGE
The best description of Madden-in-the-booth I’ve ever heard is that he was such a fan of football that he couldn’t help but share that enthusiasm and fandom with everyone else. He wanted everyone to understand *WHY* football was so great. He didn’t gatekeep, he didn’t assume that people were idiots for not understanding something, he didn’t care what “football knowers” thought of him – he just really, really wanted everyone to share in his joy of football.
He was also really good at one of the most underappreciated skills in announcing any sport, subtly letting you know “Nope you’re not missing any nuanced aspect of playing it “the right way”, this particular game this afternoon is a dud!” by going off on tangents and pointing out odd stuff going on in the sidelines. I remember one Cowboys/Giants game in the 90’s that was not close where he broke up the tedium by zooming in on one of Jimmy Johnson’s sons who was on the Cowboys sideline a guest but was reading the paper and not even paying attention to the game. I may be misremembering this but I think Madden even whipped out the telestrator to circle some of the food spread items they had out.
If you’re remembering correctly that’s some top tier chuckle right there.
I think an argument could easily be made that Madden didn’t only set the bar for football video games, but for ALL sports video games. The only comparison to Madden right now is FIFA, and FIFA was a later product and didn’t start to get really good until Madden started to get really good. Nowadays, if you make ANY sports game, it’s expected to at least be compared to how feature-filled Madden is. Every new sports game out there is asked in reviews, “Did we get the sport as well as Madden gets NFL Football?”
So IMHO, yeah, EA did the work, and John gave the endorsement, but the game lifted all ships.
Sadly the Madden Video game is not good anymore; but it in’s heyday yea they were the gold standard of football games
Agreed. EA’s Madden hasn’t “gotten” NFL football in almost 20 years. They’ve spent the last decade just removing major features, one after another.
I just picked up Legend Bowl on Steam last night, and with the NFL roster mod, it’s been WAY better than Madden of late:
http://www.legendbowl.com
Also, one other thing. I think we know who’s going to be on the next cover.
And there’ll be no more curse after that. The circle is closed.
I’m pretty sure Tom Brady and Pat Mahomes already broke the curse.
Or Eddie George since the only reason the narrative was still alive at the time was because the curse enthusiasts moved the goalpost.
To me John Madden is the BOOM! Tough-Actin’ Tinactin! guy. Still the best off-the-shelf athlete’s foot product around.