John Madden's Overlooked 'Special' Component of Football

Hall of Fame coach-turned-broadcaster's simple, but important, approach to special teams is often overlooked

John Madden didn't invent the television color commentator, but he did perfect it.

Younger fans think all he did was lend his name to a video game company and maybe some are old enough to remember when he was on national NFL games.

He was much more. A lot more.

Pro Football Hall of Fame coach, broadcaster John Madden passed away Tuesday at age 85 :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

Madden also coached the Oakland Raiders for a decade from 1969-78 and he put up astonishing numbers, winning at a 72.5% clip in a league where everybody has good players.

Madden passed away suddenly at his home in Oakland on Tuesday at the age of 85 and impacted a league and a sport forever.

"If you knew John, he made your life better. For me he was a trusted confidant, advisor, a teacher and above all, a very dear friend," former Razorback and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in a statement. "When he walked into the room, it was a better day. When he talked, you listened, and you learned."

That was true for media folks, too. Listening to him around his bus or in the press area was like being at a football clinic in the 1980's and 90's when he was the lead color analyst with Pat Summerall for CBS.

Especially when he talked about special teams. He didn't just talk about it being a full third of the game but it was an emphasis on all of his teams.

Madden kept George Blanda around for seven of his 10 seasons. He was 10 years older than Madden, but he was consistent , never got rattled and could even fill in as a backup quarterback in an emergency.

When he saw some tape of Southern Mississippi punter Ray Guy in 1973, he figured he had to have him. He was one of the highest-rated players on the Raiders' draft board.

"Boy, that was strange," Madden recalled years later. "I started looking at film on him and anybody that could punt like that we had to have him."

They picked Guy with the 23rd pick in the entire draft that year and every other team in the league giggled at Al Davis letting Madden make that pick. Others just figured Davis was making another crazy pick.

All Guy did was prove to be the best punter in the history of the game and forced the folks at the Louisiana Superdome to raise the gondola they had in the center of the field several feet because he kept hitting it before the Super Bowl there after the 1980 season.

Ray Guy with John Madden at his Hall of Fame induction in 2014 :: Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

There was none of this ridiculous present-day stuff of trying to kick it high and land the ball in somewhere near the goal line.

Just kick it high and deep.

That was also the same philosophy Lou Holtz had with Steve Cox, I confirmed when we were talking back during the football season.

Holtz would take his chances of a team going 80 yards consistently on his defense rather than risking a shank or something else that tends to happen when special teams tries to get cute.

"It helped our offense," Madden said once. "I used to tell our quarterback, 'if it gets to third down just throw the ball away (instead of forcing a possible turnover). The worst thing we have to do is let Ray Guy kick it and that's pretty good."

Most of the tributes spoken and written about decades of what he meant to the NFL went far beyond a career coaching record of 103-32-7.

"There is no one who lived a more beautiful football life than John Madden," Jones said in his statement.

Lost in most of the well-deserved praise will be the part of football he always thought was so "special."

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