Posted on 04/16/2009 9:14:20 AM PDT by Justaham
John Madden is going out on top. After calling one of the most thrilling Super Bowls of all-time, the 73-year old analyst-turned-video-game-icon is retiring from the broadcast booth, NBC announced today.
It won't feel the same without Madden calling games on any network this year (he's been employed by each of the four major broadcast channels since he began calling games in 1979), but it's the right time for Madden to hang up his microphone.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Your wife ?
John, just run the clock out and play for a tie, don't go for the win. Don't try to go out on top.
Signed...a Pats fan...
No Emeril, you were not the first.
I love this guy. He inspired me when I started "blogging" before the word was invented (no, I don't blog anymore). His "All Madden Team" inspired me to have my own socio-political commentary awards on the site...
During the victory parade, at least one guy had a sign that said something like, ‘I am glad John Madden is not my coach.’
Exactly. He and others seem to feel that every second must be filled with trite, meaningless "analysis". Before every game they should be reminded that it is being televised and viewers can see for themselves.
Madden wasn't stating the obvious when he would explain and at times diagram what was happening in the contests between opposing players, at the line of scrimmage.
The game of football is won or lost at the line. If the offense can win there, that team might win. If they don't, they will most likely lose.
Madden's experience as a player and line coach helped bring into tighter focus for the home tv viewer see what was occurring there.
What tv also misses much of, is the ongoing cat-and-mouse in the defensive backfield. The cameras follow the ball. We miss the subtleties that go on elsewhere. We don't always see the full defensive formation, nor the adjustments. Madden had a good eye for catching these fast moving details.
It’s time. Maybe it’s me but he seemed to be a bit lost at the last Super Bowl, kind of like Howard Cosell toward the end.
Actually that’s what the TV executives think, that’s why they hire play by play and color men. Madden actually deepened the standard analysis in sports, before him none of the color commentators knew the names of anybody that wasn’t a QB, WR or RB, it was all skill position all the time. Anytime you hear an analyst discuss a blocking scheme today that’s Madden’s influence.
Really? We must have been watching different leagues. Names like Bob Lilly, Dick Butkus and Fuzzy Thurston and all of the "Purple Gang" and the "Fearsome Foursome" were around and received lots of commentary long before Madden took up broadcasting.
Most of those guys were out of football long before Madden entered the booth, commentary changed in the mid-70s towards skill player obsession. And while those guys might have gotten some commentary it wasn’t of the style of the modern age, it was about the guy not about the scheme or line as a whole.
Game commentary, like the game itself, is constantly evolving. Madden ushered in an era of more information about more players, an era that wasn’t about the pass and the catch but about the block that allowed the pass and the catch. No longer just the run but the push of the line that enabled the run.
I am glad he retiring I don’t know I saw him during this NFL season he didn’t look good he look out of it
We will just have to disagree. Anyone familiar with the "Ice Bowl" 1967 NFL Championship Game knows that guard Jerry Kramer made the block that opened the way for Starr's winning touchdown.
Hall of Famers from that game are Bob Hayes, Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Rayfield Wright, Willie Davis, Forrest Gregg, Henry Jordan, Ray Nitschke, Bart Starr, and Willie Wood, most of whose names are quite familiar to long term football fans yet only two played the "skill positions."
Someone must have analyzed and commented favorably on the play of the others. Perhaps it was one or more of the excellent CBS announcers (Jack Buck, Ray Scott and the young Frank Gifford) who provided both the play by play and the type of excellent commentary that has given way to the wall of sound, non stop cliches that not only Madden but most of the other booth folk employ these days.
You’re talking about a game 12 years and one solid generation of football commentators before Madden go into the booth. There was a big change in football coverage after SBIII, when the game started getting big and there was a lot of focus on the stars. And of course the stars, then as now, are generally skill position players.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.