Quotes by John Madden

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

What's the toughest thing in a professional football game? Well, it's being the mother of the quarterback.

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

What's the toughest thing in a professional football game? It's being the mother of the quarterback -- toughest thing.

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.

Never mind the horse's blind, just load the wagon.

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

If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

Mark Brunell usually likes to soak his balls before a rainy game.

In order for this team to win the game, the quarterback has to throw the ball.

Real frontier-busting math explores new worlds ... If you can communicate that experience, somewhere between math and uncertainty, life experience provides the balance.

I always used to tell my players that we are here to win! And you know what, Al? When you don't win, you lose.

Here's a guy who can use his arms and legs at the same time.

You can't win a game if you don't score any points.

Well, when you're playing good football, it's good football and if you don't have good football, then you're not really playing good football.

I've always said winning's the great deodorant, and conversely, when you have a bad record -- everything stinks -- and everything starts to unravel, and everything falls apart.

He got up looking out of his earhole!

Boom, boom, foom, poom! He just ran right at 'em!

The best feeling is watching a real football game, because the games they show in the movies aren't real.

When you have great players, playing great, well that's great football!

Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else.

Playing in this nice weather really makes me remember all the times I got stung by a bee.

I would have all my offensive linemen wrestle if I could.

If you lose your best cornerback and punter, I'd say that's a double loss.

From the waist down, Earl Campbell has the biggest legs I have ever seen on a running back.

Winning is a great deodorant.

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.

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

He might want to watch where he lands when tackling that guy, because he could really hurt his hand if it gets stepped on.

It's a big deal. ABC and MNF are a big part of NFL history, and it's going to end with the Super Bowl (on ABC). You can't say you're not looking forward to it .

The greatest gap in sports is between the winner and the loser of the Super Bowl. The winner has confetti, parades, rings, the whole thing. The loser puts his head down and goes to his house.

He would have scored a touchdown if he hadn't been tackled right there.

If the quarterback throws the ball in the endzone and the wide receiver catches it, it's a touchdown.

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

The best way to gain more yards is advance the ball down the field from the line of scrimmage.

There definitely needs to be water on the sidelines for these players, but I also had some Gatorade just in case they were allergic to the water or vice versa.

You got one guy going boom, one guy going whack, and one guy not getting in the endzone.

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

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'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.

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.

The only things that smell good are fat and sugar. Tofu being boiled doesn't smell good. Anything that smells good is fattening.

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.

The best thing about getting older is knowing history. The longer you live, the longer you have been in a sport, the more you know, and the more you know where things started.

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.

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

Football isn't nuclear physics, but it's not so simple that you can make it simple. It takes some explaining to get it across.

I've often said, 'If I had one drive to win a game to this day, and I had a quarterback to pick, I would pick Kenny.' Snake was a lot cooler than I was. He was a perfect quarterback and a perfect Raider. When you think about the Raiders, you think about Ken Stabler.

Nobody, not even the head coach, would do anything to the 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.

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.

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

Both of my sons used to coach high school football. When they started, I'd say things I shouldn't have. So I learned my lesson.

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.'

If you go back to the history of the 'Madden' game, I was probably on the cover of it half the time. So if I was to believe there was a curse, I would also have to believe I'd been cursed. And I've never had that feeling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I get a certain feeling when I go to Lambeau field in Green Bay. Soldier field in Chicago is special to me. Those are the places that I really like. The stadiums.

I'm sure that had I not been a coach, I would have been some form of a teacher.

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.'

Sports has always been a pass-through. You pay for something, and then you pass it through to television, you pass it through to advertisers, or you pass it through to season-ticket holders, luxury boxes and then the fans. Then it all adds up, and you take in more than you pass out.

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.

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

If a guy doesn't work hard and doesn't play well, he can't lead anything. All he is, is a talker.

I think comparisons are odious.

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.

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.

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.

I'd like to work with kids in special education -- younger kids.

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

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.

Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to see and listen to what they don't want to hear.

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.

Sometimes we think videogames are just games for kids, and then once they get out of grammar school or high school, they never play again, but that's when they really start playing.

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.

You're not going to eliminate concussions. Anytime you hit your head, you have a chance of getting a concussion, in any sport, too. I think we have to learn more about it. Part of it is rules, part of it is equipment, part of it is medical studies, knowing more about the brain.

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.

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.