Quotes from John Madden

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.

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

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

If you look at tailgating, everyone does it. It's for everyone who likes to cook outdoors. It could be a 4th of July picnic.

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.

The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.

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

If you play the video game, you become more interested and you want to know more about it. You want to read as much about it as you can, see it live and watch as many games as you can. If you're the type who wants to be as involved as you can in the sport, you're probably going to want to play 'Madden NFL.'

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

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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