Hello, everybody. Welcome to a good football show. I'm your host, Patrick Darty here today with Kyle DeVorcik and Patrick Rain, where we will be previewing seven of week 17's biggest games that includes the Rams at the Ravens, the Cowboys hosting the

Cardinals, Jacksonville Jaguars, maybe in their somewhere. We don't have to talk about that right now. We will also be graced with Mr. Crane stat or stats of the week. Still don't have a sponsor, just like Ernie Johnson on TNT. I'm not trying to steal that bit from him. By the way, that is a TNT bit. I'm going to try to dive into every fantasy relevant player. Folks, guys, they didn't really have a pre-show banter topic ready, but we probably should talk about Jonathan Madden, who definitely loomed very large. Well, Kyle is probably too young.

I mean, I don't even know who Jon Madden was. I mean, Madden to me is the video game guy, but that also is like a huge part of my childhood growing up. So like, he maybe doesn't have the same level of impact on my life that he did on, you know, your guy's lives, especially Pat being the oldest Pat with two pets, Darty being the oldest among us, but Crane probably still able to remember other parts of the video game. I don't have that memory as much, but like, the video games too were like a formative part of me liking the NFL and especially the strategic side, because like, I sucked it football. I was tiny.

Like, I physically was never going to be able to play football, even when like, I got on the field. It was for a team that like in middle school ran 39 times and passed literally once or twice, not per game, but per year. And I was a wide receiver. Like, that was the whole point is players like me can get on the field. So my sort of love for football had to blossom through, you know, through the internet and through the online or the digital space. So that it's still even though maybe it doesn't function in the same ways it does for you guys. You know, he meant a lot to

the way he formed my love football. You know, he programmed those video games himself. Actually, really, really good programming there. I forget the origin story of how I got into Madden. I've been meeting to read up on that. But he was like, the only thing I can really think of, he's like a real deal, like, cultural icon is what I tweeted. Like, a true, like, that phrase can get thrown around kind of loosely, but like, he was like a legit cultural icon, like with his hand and like so many different things. And yet famous to different groups of people.

For different things, you know, like Miller light commercials and stuff. He was most famous fear of flying person in the entire country. I did you know that Kyle? No, he didn't fly. After 1979. So a lot of people listen to show probably know this. But yeah, he had the Madden Cruiser. And so he would every week for his game. He would drive across the country. He never took another flight after 1979. He had a panic attack. I never flew again. And apparently related to claustrophobia. So he was

the interesting man, a very, very interesting man. Yeah, he had like so many different kind of catch phrases. And like, there was a lot of shit to his. Yeah. Yeah. And but like, it was all delightful, which is kind of a kind of a thin needle, you know, you know, I did to thread that needle. No, it is very, very thin line between obnoxious and amazing. And he definitely came out on the amazing side. He had the whole turduck and thing. I was just about to say admittedly part of the

like too much of a percentage of Madden's personality from my hour to being perspective does involve the turduck in. Unfortunately, like I don't have, you know, vivid commentary memories of his.

I do have vivid turduck in memories. Unfortunately. Yeah, he the truck. I mean, that was not that was not fake. He really did the turduck in thing.

No, I think he like was a huge like boon for the turduck in industry. He was. Yeah, he sold a lot of turduck in. He mainstreamed the turduck in the idea. You know, the turduck in that was just a taboo concept.

An American society. You don't do a turkey chicken and a duck together. Back in the purest in 70s and 80s, we would never have thought of it.

But he pushed us culturally forward into the turduck and arrow, which we are still really a part of right. Exactly.

The Plymouth colonists are all rolling in their grave about the turduck in, but John Madden showed the American people. It was all right.

Like this is something you can do. Well, much like a turduck in. I mean, there's kind of layers to understanding who Madden was, especially for the younger generations, because you got the Madden entry point, which I also shared.

I've actually wondered some, you know, if I am kind of into dynasty so much because of Madden, I used to play the franchise mode endlessly. I have all these players that don't even exist that I like have these emotional attachments to kind of get me got me thinking long term that way.

And then also, obviously, you know, he's this incredible broadcaster, which I have, you know, members of him as a broadcaster and stuff, but I was not really aware of him as a coach.

I got into the Raiders back when they had Rich Ganon. See what's a university Delaware, which is where I brought that I ended up going.

So I was written for the really old Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, Rich Ganon Raiders. So I kind of started to learn about his legendary coaching career through that a little bit more, but there's like a whole, it's like, oh, yeah, he's not just the face of this the most famous video game and also a legendary broadcaster, but a legendary coach as well.

Hopefully they put him on the cover of Madden next year, one final tie. I would love that. By the way, that would be amazing. And that way, no one can be cursed either next year. No players can have their season ruined.

Madden, by the way, the most important, we left out the most important part. His final on screen employer was NBC.

So he was an NBC employee first and foremost, final six or seven years of his broadcasting career. That was nothing. He was one of the only people to ever work for all four of the big four.

Air for CBS, then he worked for Fox, then he worked for ABC, then he worked for NBC, because we all this like kept one up in each other, like paying him more money, because he was that.

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