Aw, I like Madden. He stays, but that asswipe Joe Theisman has GOT to go. Gah, he grates on me something terrible!!!
I have always found Madden to be an annoying detraction from games. I watch games with mute on and listen to music.
I’ve always detested Madden. He’s the Teddy Atlas of football.
Put me in the smaller pro-Madden camp.
I wanted his fat ass off the air since he was pacing the sidelines during Raiders games. I haven’t changed my mind.
OK, now you went too far. I had my torch and pitchfork out and was all ready to storm Madden’s castle with the rest of this mob, but…he *ain’t * Teddy Atlas. :mad:
Maybe it’s just that boxing creates or rewards old-school egomaniacs, but Teddy Atlas’ ratio of “worthwhile insights” to “express as well as implied image of self as an unassailable expert” is simply off the charts. I used to love it a few years ago, when it was so obvious he hated Max Kellerman, just because Kellerman was younger, more articulate, better looking, more famous to everyone outside of hardcore boxing fans, and a better interviewer. 
My favorite Madden moment came about 8 years ago. I was watching a Redskins-Cowboys game. Jimmy Johnson took one of his tackles (a #60) and put him in at tight end. This prompted Madden to reveal the following insight:
“Now, you see what Jimmy Johnson did here? He put #60 in at tight end. When the Cowboys put in #60 at tight end, you know it’s going to be a run or a pass.”
Well, thanks for ruling out the surprise punt on first down, John. I swear, that line is almost as good at bringing me to a Zen state as Lewis Black’s “If it wasn’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.”
And to continue along the Lewis Black lines, if you think about that Madden quote for more than 30 seconds, blood will come shooting out of your nose! 
Fortunately, I have a simple device that can keep idiots off of my television.
It’s called a remote control. 
What I don’t get is the Brett Farve thing. Did Madden have his lips surgically implanted to Brett’s ass about 11 years ago?
After another Brett blind toss that gets intercepted and ran back for 6…
The thing is, Al, any other quarterback would get reamed on the sidelines for making such a play, but Brett is that rare player that can make things happen despite the situation. Any other Sunday, that ball would’ve been in for a touchdown.
*Most other quarterbacks, Al, when they get flushed out of the pocket like that and penned in 15 yards deep in their own backfields without an open receiver…most other quarterbacks are going to give up on the play and throw the ball away. But that’s not Brett Favre. That’s not who Brett Favre is and Brett Favre has to be Brett Favre is and that’s what makes Brett Favre Brett Favre and I think his teammates and his coaches appreciate that. You can see right here he’s got a chance to dump the ball off to his fullback but instead, he’s going to scramble ten more yards into his backfield and then he’s going to wheel and throw a bullet right to the free safety. Now if that had been one of his receivers instead of the free safety, that would have been a completed pass. It turned out to be six the other way but that’s not what Brett Favre was thinking about. Brett Favre was thinking about completing that pass and that’s what makes him so great.
Al Michaels: But that’s Favre’s second interception of the first quarter and the Packers are down 14 nothing. Is Favre hurting his team more than he’s helping it?
Madden: If it wasn’t for Brett Favre, Al, the Packers wouldn’t be in this game at all.*
It’s scary that I could hear all of this in Madden’s voice. Or maybe it was Frank Caliendo’s…
I say Madden’s a walking viral ad for the alcoholic beverage industry. If you’ve listened to Madden for the first three ball possessions and you’re not already on your second beer, you’re either deaf or either on the wagon.
Q: do the networks even try to offer a simultaneous transcription for the benefit of the hearing-impaired of what sports commentators say? Might be unintentionally hilarious, that.
Neither of them contribute anything to the commentary and are masters of the bleeding obvious:
Madden: Now, if they want to score, they’re gonna have to move the football down the field to the endzone. (After the next down is played): Now see, they moved the football down the field on that play, which is what they have to do if they want to score. They can’t score if they don’t move the football.
Atlas: If Johnson doesn’t stay outside, he’s going to get tagged. See, if he’s outside, then he can’t get hit, but if he moves inside, he can be hit. So he needs to stay outside so he doesn’t get hit. (Repeat every 20 seconds during the fight).
How do I describe John Madden? What’s the word… fucktard! Isn’t that an old SDMB adjective. That head running bastard has been driving me up the wall for years. I finally just started turning the volume down on the TV and turn the game on the radio. They’ve got a lot better play by play anyway.
(bam, whap, socko… it’s like a goddamned batman rerun)
How about Emeril for his partner?
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Madden is drunk off his ass on the air?
Anyway, I kind of like him, but I’m not sure why. I don’t really pay attention to the commentators.
Nah, that was Sumerall’s schtick.
Oh God, yes! This is what kills me about Madden, and let’s throw in the apes who cover college football for ESPN (Fowler/Herbstreit/May/Corso) as well. I understand there are great players in the game. But great players fuck up (see Favre for the past two seasons and so far this preseason) and you need to be able to note this. On the other side of the ball, sometimes the lesser known players make great plays and you should point this out as well.
Madden had the same issue with Troy Aikman. Annoying as hell. Everything Aikman did was masterful, and if the opposing team knocked him down or picked him off it was because somebody else fucked up.
Joe always has a spot in my heart for being the 'Skins QB of my youth, but he needs to seriously shut the fuck up already. Now, I’d love to hear John Riggins do play-by-play…
Special mention to the all-time worst play-by-play guy in history, Joe Namath. If you never heard him call a game you missed a treat.
See, this is the thing I really hate about Madden–obvious, lame-ass observations couched in “witty” language.
IIRC, it was Madden (or as we call him in my family: The Mouth), who once made the brilliant statement that if you get eleven yards a carry, you’re going to make a lot of first downs. This prompted several awed and worshipful replies from us: “No shit?” “You know, he’s* right*!” “Damn, I’d never have figured that one out! Thanks, John!”
I saw a game in which Summerall and Madden missed a touchdown. They were busy discussing, I think, a recently retired (from neither team in the game) player’s groin. A team scored, the scoreboard changed to reflect the changed point totals, the crowd (the visitors scored) booed, the extra point was kicked, the scoreboard changed again, the crowd booed again, time was called, a commercial was aired, then two more, then a fourth, then the game was back on, and never once was the touchdown mentioned or acknowledged except to refer to the correct score. I know TV is a primarily visual medium, but…
That said, John Madden is an aging football legend-in-progress whose “little amusing tics that made him different than everybody else on the air” twenty (twenty-five? twenty-favre?) years ago became “the whole act and don’t expect any actual football announcing anymore” about ten years ago. It isn’t all his fault: television networks have producers and directors and professional broadcasters, any of whom could have told him at any time, “John, just because the olive is some people’s favorite part of the martini doesn’t mean anybody wants to drink a big glass of olive juice.”
My opinion: he used to be an okay color man, pretty entertaining, had some good stories that he told when they were relevant to the game, and some quirks that were strange enough make him stand out and funny enough to be what people talked about when they talked about him. He (with or without encouragement) responded by trying to give the people what they seemed to want, and upped the percentage of quirks. He miscalculated somewhere, and accidentally became his own caricature. Too bad, really.