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GMFB Tuesday Hour 2: Chargers lose, John Madden's SON joins! Coach Rivera joins!

Published Nov 26, 2024, 6:05 PM

Hour Two of the Good Morning Football Podcast begins with hosts Jamie Erdahl, Kyle Brandt, Akbar Gbajabiamila, and Isaiah Stanback reacting to the Los Angeles Chargers loss to the Baltimore Ravens. John Madden’s son Mike joins the show and talks about how much players lobbied for their player rating in Madden, he touches on the rise of Madden football, and then he answers what he wants people to remember about his dad. Coach Ron Rivera joins the show and talks about the impact of John Madden. 

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Good Morning Football.

Welcoming to Good Morning Football, presented by Old Trap from Fat Turkey Live in LA and New York.

Excusday of Ever twenty six. Kyle, here's what's going on.

I feel like you're on the outside show right now. Just say say, stand back, that's Kyle Brand, Aquar Bajm Millah, myself, David ort All. Aqward does this very endearing thing on the show where he'll ask you to start talking about something outside of football and then he'll be like, yeah, this concept, have you heard of it? And Kyle, let me just tell you. We're listening to a music studio right now, and Akbar goes, you know, and into country music. I go, yeah, like who deadpan dead series, Kyle. This man just looked at me and said, uh, Kenny Chesney heard him? And then the show open rolled and Isaiah and I lost our minds.

Don't know what Kenny Chesney is, who he was? You just discovered, just discover him.

I discovered him when Beyonce's Texas song came out. I wasn't looking be honest work.

Yeah I was. I'm familiar with his work. I didn't know.

I knew Garth Brook, I knew him, but I didn't know you know a lot of the other country songs. And I said, you know, let me get into Coach because I was.

Playing her song on loop and I said, oh wow, I like this Kenny Chesney.

This is pretty cool.

So that's how I discovered Kenny Chesney.

Hold on, let me get a one show. You should check out this. This rapper his name is his name is Eminem. He is great.

He's like totally different. He goes out in a different way. You would like him.

It's the equivalent. No equivalent.

Was like, Hey, so I've been watching football. There's this guy named Tom Brady.

Ever heard him? It's got crazy.

It is absolutely the Tom Brady football.

Okay, pretty up there?

Yeah, I'm very I mean, it's so great the way you always lived that you.

Like, have you heard of him? Yeah? Have you heard? Have you heard? Tremendous? I thought something Kenny pretty good running back? Have you heard?

Oh?

Yeah, he's really good.

There is an all time great college athlete who told the Kenny Chesney story on the air ones that I'm not going to repeat. It was really weird. I'm not going to name the athlete. I'm not going to do it. It was years ago. He's a very famous athlete that you know. And I'm going to move off to Kenny Chesney topic because it was the strangest story in the history of Good Morning Football. Let's go to though the Monday night football game if we will, please, even I'll google it while you want.

The lead block brings.

Us to Ravens and Chargers, and it brings us to John versus Jim in Jim's house.

But it's really Lamar.

Versus the Chargers in those navy blue uniforms.

That they have never won in. I read that they're zero.

And five in those uniforms. They look pretty clean back. I don't care about that stuff. Stop wearing them. Thirty to twenty three, the Ravens win, they're eight and four. They're sitting right there in that AFC playoff picture.

But so are the Chargers seven and four.

Afterwards, let's hear from the losing head coach, Jim Harbaugh and his quarterback Justin Herbert.

Main thing is, I mean they played better football tonight and and as I said a couple of times, yeah, that's more importantly to me is I know we're building and and I know what we're capable of and onward.

It's a cool opportunity for them, but I think it's another football game.

You know, it was a great opportunity for.

Us to go out there and play on on Monday Night football, and you know you want to be able to play in these games in November and December, and you know it didn't go ourway unfortunately, but you know we're gonna watch the film, get better from it and keep moving forward.

I think Justin Herbert's a nice guy, but I feel like we're on the We like the opportunity on Monday night football part of the season, like the Chargers needed to win that game just to make a bit of a statement in late in the season. Here's the AFC playoff picture right now as it stands. Despite the Chiefs winning games in different fashions than they may have in the past, that's a nice way of putting it. They still hold the number one seed. You have to go through arrowhead to get to the super Bowl, if you ask us. In Week twelve, the Bills, the Steelers, and the Texans.

All round it out.

Although Houston really isn't playing that great a football right now.

So let's discuss that's five.

And six seed, because that was a really impactful Monday night game last night. Things that caught your eye from the Chargers side of things though, in their loss to the Ravens in primetime, Isaiah, I.

Have to go with the receivers for the Chargers, or the lack thereof the options for dependable receivers. When you talk about what they've lost over the past year, you lost too of the greatest receivers that have played for the Chargers organization and Mike Williams Inekeenan Allen. When you lose both for those guys and you move on for those veterans, you're now entrusting in some young guns, right. So obviously you have the young Quinnion Johnson, who everybody's going to continue to talk about because of his woes over his career so far. But you have a trustworthy Palmer who just hasn't been trustworthy as either. So you have two guys last night who just were not dependable when you needed those down and distance, you know, conversions, and when you don't have that as a quarterback, you throw the ball with question marks. You hesitate, you hold on to the ball, so everything starts going backwards. You start getting more sex, start getting more QB pressures. The ball's not as accurate, it doesn't have the velocity that it once had because now you're trying to place the ball. So all these things really start kind of compounding on it on themselves. They need some dependable receivers or they need the guys to step up in a major way.

Well, I think what coach Greg Roman offensive coordinated. I thought he did an example, did a great job, and that example was in that first drive and they opened it up with a ninety yard drive that allows them to get in to score that first point of the game. But when you think about these struggles that they have being able to get the ball vertically, I think it's going to be a well balanced look of being able to execute on the play action, being able to run that inside zone run, hitting it up the middle. They got away from that because they didn't have the ability to really help the play action because they didn't have a vertical threat. And once you know you don't have a vertical threat, you just start playing up front.

JK.

Dobbins, though, look good coming out the coming out the gate. So the Chargers, I think they've got some improvement to do. They got to fix that deep shot very very fast.

Yeah, Dobbins leaves the game of an injury. You hate to see that with him because he's had such an injury history. He's been a big part of what they do here. I think the Chargers are still on pace this to win eleven games, like personally I said they would the second they hired Jim Harbaugh.

I can see how the movie ends for the Chargers.

They're gonna win eleven games, they're gonna get in the playoffs, and they're likely gonna lose in the wild card round of someone like Houston or Pittsburgh or maybe Baltimore because Quentin Johnson drops the pass. We've seen this now for a year and a half. It's probably how it's gonna go. I actually want to switch to the Ravens because I want to get to the end of their movie so badly. I just don't know how this one ends. I've seen in this movie many many times. Lamar's great, they get to the playoffs, they lose, they underwhelm, and is it going to be different? Here's the hope to expect it to maybe be different this year. Obviously, the Derek Henry thing we've talked about a lot. I don't even think it's getting appreciated that much. How good the offense has been.

So when you're.

Trying to talk about an offense and just hype it up, you say, oh, since the ninety nine Rams, Oh they look like the greatest show on turf. It's what you do on offenses. Do you want to see us side by side for right now? That I think is very compelling about the Baltimorerivens of this year and the greatest show on turf? All right, that's the Rams on the right. I'm talking about the old two thousand Rams. Let's just go from top to bottom. Rams have a few more yards per game. The yards per play is actually insane seven yards per play. The Rams have a few more points and they have slightly less plays per drive. But I want you to look at yards per play. Seven is ridiculous. For comparison, the Lions this year are six to three. They're not even close to seven. If you're doing seven yards per play, that is historic, especially if you're looked upon as sort of a plotting offense that hands is to Derrick Henry, and it's a pile of dust. It's not it's seven yards per play. Now, last year Lamar won the MVP, and I think a very very strange MVP year in which his stats were not MVP stats. This year, his stats are better this year. The offense is better. This year, they have Derrick Henry. Is the movie different? Is the movie?

It's seen? Different?

Now?

It's really crazier. Stay with me ver a second.

The Baltimore Ravens are going to play the Philadelphia Eagles. That is a crazy, huge, monstrous game. You don't get bigger games than that in middle of the regular season.

And then even.

Crazier than that, the Ravens have not had their buy yet. They have a really really late buy. So what's going to happen is they're going to play Philadelphia, They're going to go into the bye, and we're all going to talk about the Ravens for two weeks.

Good bad. Otherwise, I don't even care.

I just want to fast forward until the divisional or the wild card, whatever it may be, and do they win.

I don't know. This is fine, I don't the schedule.

They'll win most of those games, guys, you already know that we know what's going to happen for the rest of this part of the season. For the Ravens, they'll probably win three out of five of those games, four out of five.

I don't know.

They're just in this rare class of team where it's like I kind of know everything I need to know about you.

We all do.

Just get to the end and tell us if it's a different ending this time or not. And that's all it is. There's only like three or four teams like that. Buffalo is certainly won, Philadelphia not because last year was so different.

But the Ravens are just we run through the season.

They're good, they're good, maybe they're great, and we'll find out until then wait and see.

So, Kyle, I don't disagree with you, but the difference this year is the Baltimore Ravens offensively are not going to be the reason why they don't win. If that ends up being the end of this story, it's going to be the defense. And I'll tell you why. The Baltimore Ravens have given up the sixth least amount of turnovers. They don't turn the ball over, and the Baltimore Ravens are leading the NFL in passing, and then the Baltimore Ravens are second in the league in rushing.

So when you're.

Able to be in the top three in rushing, top number one in passing, and you're not turning the ball over, you're not going to be the reason why you don't say.

I love you. I get it. I think you're making all the right points.

And yet you know, you play Pittsburgh and you score sixteen points and you lose to a team doesn't score a touchdown. It's like, that's what I'm saying. Like they're such a shiny object. They're so impressive, and this year even more so because the numbers I showed and because Derek Henry is so fun.

They just have an ability to do on a given day. Be like, who are these guys? Who are these guys that I've watched for three months? And I don't know if that's going to be different or not. I want to see that full screen again. This is what I'm asking for.

Can we take a look at this again, the one that Kyle just had up with the comparisons the Rams and the Ravens, because yesterday you were saying that you thought the Lions were up there with the greatest show on turf. So I'm just going to do this verbally because we're not going to add the team. Here, we go total yards per game because I'm looking at the Lions right now, Da da, they're at that can't be right? Oh, three point fifty six?

Is that so not right?

Three fifty six?

We'll get that the yards per play yards per play is six point one.

Six point one, okay, okay, and then points per game.

Points per game standby, Yeah, we're looking at that.

Yeah, Ravens are at thirty point three. The greatest show on turf was thirty three point eight. I mean, impressive numbers right there.

No, I like, I know, I don't want to watch it, So I'm not going to just like that's all right, and I want to put the line. I want to look at the Lions.

Can we put them up there eventually? Because this is a really.

Good conversation because AFC and NFC, because it's beyond just like statistical argument. In fact, what you're saying here is kind of parallel to the Lamar Jackson MVP argument, which is like they can put up the numbers and they can look great, they can be the statistical kings in the regular season. But when it comes to Kyle, your argument for the Ravens is really starting to parallel what you always say about the Cowboys, which is like this is nice, this is great, and now here we are in January looking at them on January fifteenth, and we're looking ahead to the Ravens draft pick.

So are you doing this well, Gamie? The two thousand Ravens.

The two thousand Rams didn't win the Super Bowl either.

They got schooled up and they lost.

So it's like that because they ran into a really, really good Patriots defense. It's just like sometimes these offensive juggernauts they disappoint us, and how do you come out the next morning after they beat the Chargers and say whining about the Ravens. Just because there's much expected of the Ravens. They have a different expectation. They're one of one handful of teams in the whole league who we look at as they're top echelon.

They're up there.

So you go to the playoffs again and you know, you lose to the Chiefs or whoever it is, you lose to Buffalo, It's like.

What are we gonna do with you guys?

We spent four months always saying how amazing you are. Now you bring in Henry, we're comparing you to old RAMS teams, and you let us down again. It's just that's the expectation, and we only have to just wait and hope that it can be different this, Kyle.

The one thing I will say that is different that might make this different for and maybe even give you a little bit more hope in the Baltimore is the fact that in Lamar Jackson's tenure, they've never had anyone like Derrick Henry. And that's a massive, massive upgrade and trust and confidence in the ability, you know, and you know, I know, you know you were talking about Isaiah was talking about the liability being the defense and then putting all the concern on there. But offensively, I think that's where we start going, Oh man, they have all this offensive power and it didn't turn through. That run game is old school, hard nos football that you can rely on even if Lamar Jackson is having an off game. So I think hopefully you feel a little bit more secure with that type of insurance.

Run game is vital.

Just as the Chargers they might have an injury to their running back Tom Pellisero, get in here.

A couple questions for you, sir.

Do you know who Kenny Chesney is and what's going on with JK.

Dobbins.

Familiar with Kenny Chesney? Not a country music fan? I can tell you, Jamie. The Lions rank second in yards per game, third in yards per play, thank you, and number one at thirty two point seven points per game. Let's talk about JK. Dobbins, the Chargers running back. The jargon removing the football last night until Dobbins came out of that game with a left knee injury. Listen initially was listed as questionable. He actually came out of the locker room wearing a brace, tried to warm it up at the start of the third quarter, but just couldn't get himself going. The fact that they allowed him even to test it out with the brace would indicate that they are optimistic. This is not a major injury for JK.

Dobbins.

But remember that left knee is the one in which he tore his ACL back in the twenty twenty one preseason. He had a second surgery removed scar tissue in twenty twenty two. I would anticipate there are more tests on JK. Dobbins today if the Chargers try to rule out anything significant, that might side by him.

For a while.

In other news, former Giants quarterback Daniel Jones now officially a free agent, though that may not last all that long. Daniel Jones has interest from multiple teams, most likely to land someplace as a backup. That decision is a expected as soon as today. Of course, we've had speculation and reports regarding teams like the Ravens and the Vikings. I would fairly tell you there are other teams also that are trying to make a post to land Daniel Jones as their backup. There's also another quarterback that popped up on the injury report on Monday. It is the Cowboys Cooper Rush, who is listed as limited in practice because of a knee injury. I am told Cooper Rush took a shot on that knee. He is very sore right now. Mike McCarthy said that he's got some work to do, but he thinks that they're going.

To be okay.

It is a short week though, before the Thanksgiving game against the Giants, so certainly a lot of treatment coming for Cooper Rush to try to be ready for a game. That could keep the Cowboys on the edge of the playoff picture.

Jamie.

Okay, Tom, So you said with Daniel Jones that you think a decision is going to come today. Can you just do a quick clarification on what a team would have to pay him? Like this is like a nothing burger when it comes to putting Daniel Jones on your roster right.

Correct, He's doing another eleven point eight million dollars fully guaranteed for the balance of this season, subject to offsets. So the new team either can signed to the practice squad potentially or sign him to a minimum deal on their roster. It's basically six games plus playoffs at a minimum salary. Here you get a look at Daniel Jones, who is a highly drafted player. He's a physical specimen. You'll see whether or not you can get something out of him. For Daniel Jones, an opportunity just to go someplace, maybe learn a new offense, be exposed to a different coaching step. We've seen this workout with the likes of Baker Mayfield, big different speed. I don't think that Daniel Jones is going to sign someplace and start a game on Thursday, which is basically what Baker did. This is much more of a go someplace, work your way into the system, and then we'll see exactly what that means when he presumably hits free agency again come this March.

There's no place that I would rather be on Thanksgiving than rise here right now at a football game. There's just certain things that go together, you know, the turkey, the family, the tradition, football, and we have it all today.

Thanks Giving me.

All right.

Christmas has Santa Claus, Thanksgiving has Madden.

We're gonna get into all of this. Look at this.

So you got bears, head, Lions, the tradition, watch the Lion show. Watch Caleb try to chip away at it.

Giants, Cowboys. Wen't know exactly what we're getting from that one. Cooper Rush is hurt now, but we'll be there anyway.

That's right after the food and then Dolphins Packers can do a play in the cold.

All that wonderful stuff.

But more importantly, the great John Madden's legacy lives on, and of course the Madden video game and Amazon Prime Video is dropping a four part series today on how the legendary coach changed the video game in sports world forever, including making a player rating system that becomes highly highly debated.

It probably co from I mean some computer just geek, don't even know what the football is.

Yeah, I did the original player ratings.

And whatever they would meet with Madden, the first thing that they would do was about their player ratings.

Dad thought it was a joke.

And then you know, the player would leave and the pier guy would be like, yeah, no, he read his rating.

There was plenty of times when the athletes came in and we had discussions about their actual ratings.

Ricky Waters came in to see me because I'm fast injury. You got to make my speed ready higher than Jerry Rice. I said, Ricky, we can't do that.

It's in the game.

It is in the game, and right now it's in the show. You saw him there in that piece. We are now joined by John Madden's son, Mike Madden. Mike, Good morning.

How you doing Mike?

We have so much to talk about, but before we do, would you mind setting the scene for us a little bit.

What is this incredible background? And where are you right now?

I mean in our office in Pleasant in California, and I'm sitting in my dad's old conference area. That was just off his his desk is over to my left and his office and then off I'm off to the right in his in his conference area where he's got his raider Raider wall behind me, and a couple of other a couple of other trophies and things hollow ground.

I see trophies as memorabilia. I say, double low, gem Atto. It's a really really cool stetup, and we love that you're joining us. Let's start right now about some whining and complaining.

We just saw it in the video.

How much did the players really lobby your dad and everyone involved in the game about their personal player rating?

They did, and and he he came in and you know, like I said on that little clip, he thought it was a joke.

He thought they were teasing.

But they they found out what their ratings were, and just you know, and they wanted they.

Always wanted more juice. They always wanted to give me more juice.

Juice me up. Come on.

And some of the players he really liked, you know, the ones that he would meet the day before the game, you know, the Randy Mosses.

You know, so when Randy Moss wants a little more juice, you pick up the phone and you see what you might be able to do for.

The gug Wow.

Yeah, I mean that's kind of hard. That's kind of hard to ignore, you know, a call from a Jerry Rice.

You know.

I think about you know, growing up, you know, as a kid in the eighties and nineties, and just remember when Madden Football came out and how big it was. It kind of supplanted that of tech Bo Bowl. Tech Bobowl was the thing before then. I got to ask because I know there's the famous story about Hulk Hogan missing out on the Foreman Grill opportunity. You know, he missed a phone call. Like, what did your father think when they approached him to do this game? Was he familiar? Was he interested? Did he need a lot of convincing for this?

Well he didn't because it started out as a computer project, and there was even a period of time where it was going to be a coaching tool, but it started out being made for computers video games. Like you said, you know, tech Moobil did not have the capability to uh do what they're now doing, and nor could they even project ahead. So he was working with Trip Hawkins and he was really impressed with Trip.

He really liked him. Trip went to Harvard.

I went to Harvard, and Dad would always tease me, he goes, hey, this guy Trip Hawkins. They at Harvard. They let him major in games. Do you get to make up your own major? And I'm going no, Dad, they gave me like six to choose from. But uh right, so you know, but no, he put his faith in Trip, and and Trip was kind of the guy that he hitched his wagon to. So they had no idea that it was going to get to this big and that it was going to get to cartridges and all that stuff. So they were working on it when it was when it was a computer game, and they were just it was closer to uh, like Pong and in television.

Yeah, yeah, that's all Mike, first ball. Pleasure to have you on here. I have the pleasure of working with Nate Newton on the Cowboys platform. So I have to say hi on behalf of Nate Newton because I know how important your.

Dad was to him.

But I have to ask you this Madden has transformed obviously the entire industry in terms of video games and how much everybody endures it. When did you guys realize that this was a major deal?

So Dad had his coaching career and he won one hundred games in ten years, and he won a super Bowl and he had the highest winning percentage in NFL history. So he thought he was you know, he thought he was all set, you know, in life as a coach, and then he broke through the paper for light beer from Miller and he became the breakthrough the paper guy, you.

Know, and everybody thought that was his shtick, Hey Madden, you know the thing.

And then after the game came out, he had an apartment in New York City and he's like, hey, he goes, kids are sticking their heads out.

Of windows and they're going, hey Madden, Hey Madden. And he's like and I'm like, you know, who does how do nine year old kids know what the heck's going on?

And then it took him a little while, took him a few weeks or months, and that started happening.

Sarah getting yelled that is Madden.

He goes, that's that's because of the video game, and he was he was kind of shocked. So he kind of had he thought he thought he was famous when he was a coach, was Miller lite. And then he was really surprised when kids started yelling at him and.

Calling him Madden, Yeah, generational football impact, Mike. My dad's a doctor. If I try to get him to watch Er or Gray's Anatomy, He's like, I don't want to sit here and do this with you. This is I already do this for a living. Did you and your family ever play.

The video game?

Like, did your dad play his own video game? Or is that not something he wanted to do engage in?

So he was working on this for years with Trip and the documentary does a beautiful job of showing that. So it had been years in the making, and we had a little So this is late eighties, early nineties. I played it when it came out on the Sega Genesis, but I also got a crack at it a couple of years before that, when floppy discs were actually floppy, you know. And so we had an Apple two computer and he brought home floppy disc He.

Goes, hey, the game's done. The game's done, you know. He was all excited, and so he says, try it out.

So one morning I wake up and I popped the two discs in the in the l Apple two, and I've got a manual and all I had was a joystick with a button and a single joy stick.

And this is.

Like I said, nineteen eighty nine or so, and I was one of those kids. I played electric football, I played Lombardi Football, so I was you know this stuff.

So I'm in the manual and I'm like, okay, this is Madden Football.

Dad always started with a little fullback to the left to get the game going. And so I takes me about twenty minutes to program the first play. So I'm here with my joystick. I'm going to run behind our shell and gin upshaw and I hit the button and you know, some lights blink and.

I go into the left. It last like one second and I get drilled. So I pop up at the second eleven. So I'm like, okay, okay, use your gaming experience. So I go, okay, I want the defensive guys.

I want them the hell out of there, so I put them in a prevent and then I want to run a play where I can manipulate the guy with the joystick. So I'm thinking, you know, run a toss to the left, you know, Marcus, And then if I want to reverse field, I can do that again. Another twenty minutes go by, and I'm programming the thing and I'm all excited, Okay, this is going to work, and I hit the button and there's the blinking toss to the left and boom, and I get drilled for a four yard loss. And so I quit. I said, you know, this thing is a waste of my time. And I ran into my dad like five minutes after I quit. He says, did you try the game? Did you try it out? And I go, yeah, I got dad, your game is crap, he goes, and he was heartbroken.

He goes, well, what do you mean?

What do you mean?

I go, Dad, I go, I go, I've played all these games, and I put him in a prevent and I ran a toss to the left and he goes. He goes, you can't run a toss to the left against the prevent. You got Charles Haley up there. He's gonna run back there. That's exactly what happened. Yeah, he goes, the game. The game het crap, You're crap. So that was when I realized that he was shooting for a higher thing than just being able to run toss against the prevent.

That's amazing, and that's why they created the Ask Madden feature in the game because you can just ask him and he'll tell you not to run toss against the prevawm with Charles Haley Mike, there's a lot of people around the country right now who are making actual plans to take a chicken and put it inside of a duck and then inside of a turkey. We know that tur duckan We actually had Greg Olsen on the show earlier this week, the great player turned prolific broadcaster.

He says, they have tur duck in every single year in the Olsen family.

Do the Maddens this day and age have turducan on Thanksgiving?

Absolutely?

Well, not not necessarily on Thanksgiving, but you know, but by definition Dad was always in Detroit, Dallas, so so we always so Thanksgiving was a flexible thing for us.

But no Glenn down a gourmet butcher block down in New Orleans.

He he called me just last week and he always checks with me, and he wants me to make sure that I got a turn ducan and I got a back up and and he keeps us well stocked. And yes, we eat it. We love it. We had the we had the stuffed chickens for Sunday. Last last Sunday, we were watching football. We had their their stuffed chickens. No, we are big fans and uh yes, we enjoyed the product very much.

Hey Mike, if you could hook a brother up, then maybe send one. I know we're not that far away from each other. Maybe send me one of this famous traduction. I'd love to try some. I have not had that experience yet, but I do hear that it's pretty good. So I'll give you my my mailing address efforts.

Uh, you got it, you got it. I'll down to Glenn and he'll get you. He'll get you, he'll get you, He'll get you hooked up right away.

Okay, sounds good.

Uh. I want to talk about to your dad's career because I know it took on so many different chapters like you talked about. We know him as the broadcaster and the commercial guy in the video game, but I guess outside of his career maybe more to who your dad is as a person. It's been about three years now since its passing. What do you want people to remember about the great coach John Medden?

You're dead.

I was afraid when he passed that he would get to take on kind of a mythological or like a caricature self, you know, thing of himself, and you know, he's in the Hall of Fame. He has the highest regular season winning percentage of any coach in NFL history. He was a brilliant man, and his brilliance showed itself in his coaching record. His brilliant showed himself in the Emmy Awards that he won, and his brilliance, you know, showed and that he had a hand in creating one.

Of the most popular games in video game history.

So I was afraid that it was going to be Altereduck and talking boom and wap and that, and that his brilliance was going to get forgotten. And it hasn't, and it's been appreciated and celebrated, and his legacy is being carried on and very very I think his memory is is he's well represented.

Well, that's really really well put, Mike, and we appreciate you and we respect you personally as well for coming on the show and doing what you do. It's in the game Madden NFL streaming on Amazon Prime. Who doesn't want to watch that, especially this time of year? Go check it out in the meantime, Mike Madden, great guy, total gentleman.

We really appreciate you joining us. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving.

Me appre Thanksgiving you, thank you, thank you all for having me. I appreciate it.

Look was joining us at the table.

It's our coach, run rivera thanks Giving.

Everybody, go to you.

We were going to talk a lot of other things, but as he always does, John Madden just came to the table in spirit, and we have to discuss the documentary. His was just on, but also your relationship with him and what maybe that conversation, because I know you were listening what it drummed up for you?

It drowned up a lot of great memories.

First of all, just the fact that he's in his dad's office in Pleasant in California. I went there a couple of times, sit down, visit with coaches. He mentored me through my head coaching career. Phenomenal building. It's like it is you pay homage to the Raiders when you get there. He has a seven man crowlers in the parking lot. He told everybody that that's the true story.

It is true. I saw it. It's an amazing thing. It really is.

And then you see all the memorability when you first walk in. I mean, it really is like the Raiders Hall of Fame. He's got pictures of all the guys, great statues of a lot of the players he's had. And then you walk into his office and sure enough, he has a video setup with screens to watch all the NFL games. It's an amazing thing, it really is. It's really cool.

It's amazing, and we always love talking about Matt in this time of the year, especially rom There's so many great dignitaries in the league, and so many coaches and so many announcers, and yet there is something just that's really special and magical about him, especially maybe for a young person who wasn't around for it. Can you explain what sets him apart from your perspective.

Well, from my perspective. First of all, you remember that I remember he was a great coach. I met him when I was sixteen years old, the very first time he and his family come down to Monterey to celebrate after they just wanted the Super Bowl that year, and he was just that iconic. But he was so gracious to me, and then I never forgot it, and then we developed this relationship as a player and as a broadcaster, and so every time we played, he would always get.

A chance to visit with me. That was always really cool.

And then as I became a head coach, I needed a mentor somebody to help me get over the hump.

It was John madd and lo and.

Behold, and he was so gracious with this time and treated me so I mean so eloquently. It just made me feel great. So every time I see him, every time I got an opportunity to visit with him, I did. And then I got to know Mike a little bit and we've become friends and hopefully we'll get an opportunity to visit again this you know, sometime when I'm back up in monitoring. He's in minor as well. But just those memories were just an amazing thing. And as you guys talked with him, I thought that was a tremendous interview.

I really did. I was really excited about.

Where did coach Madden's history come from? Uh, you know, you hear about the you know the trees and coaches tree and stuff like. Where did John Madden like where was his biggest influence?

I think his biggest influence was an overall mentor the people that he worked with, the people that he helped. Andy Reid is one of his one of his mentees. I mean, if you talk to coach read about he'll tell you they used to talk all the time and about some of the craziest things they talked about, you know, diners, drives and drive through.

Or whatever stuff.

Yeah, they always talk about those different restaurants that were on TV. And it was a hilarious conversation to listen to him talk to coach about it.

It was it was really fun.

And Coach, what was the most impactful If you can even pick one thing, as you know obviously you were Coach Madden being your mentor or a coach that's had an impact on your life. What's one thing that really sticks with you when you think about his memory and how he impacted your life.

There's two things. One is he's the guy that created Riverboat Ron inadvertently getting me to.

How important it was used the fourth down.

No, Kyle, it's a tremendous story he and I talked about at one point my first two years of my career, I was three and thirteen in games decided by six points or less, and most of those games were lost in the fourth quarter, and most of those games were lost because on fourth down, I did what was safe, and that was I kicked the ball, either punted it or I kicked the field goal. He made me understand how important it is to go for it situation.

Yeah, how much of a flex it is for someone just to say I needed a mentor, and John Madden became my mentor.

Like, that's not just the thing.

How you had to work at that and you had to establish a relationship. And that's really really amazing that that's a thing.

In your life.

It's really cool.

And the cool thing about it is I've got notes from all those times that he and I talked on the telephone, he and I talked in person. I was fortunate enough that he had me on the Madden Coaches Committee, which is a big thing, and it was a big honor to be on part of that, and that was that was a tremendous thing too.

Riverboat RN on at the table. Everybody, of course, has to talk to John Madden on Thanksgiving week.

We appreciate your coach.

Always a pleasure