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.
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
Baseball has better opening days and All-Star Games than the N.F.L. does. Ours stink.
I like to hear about what people do. That's more interesting than talking about what the hell I do.
In Oakland, Al Davis was a genius. We had Ron Wolff there, too, and he was a genius. There was no room for me to be a genius.
Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.
Since 1981, I've spent every Thanksgiving Day broadcasting a game, and it is one of my favorite days. You can say, 'Woe is me, I never get to be part of the tradition,' or you can say, 'Heck, we've got our own tradition, and it's pretty good.'
I was in New York on September 11 when those planes hit the World Trade Center. At the time, it seemed like it was a local thing. But three or four days later, by the time we drove across the country in the bus, we realized it wasn't a local thing. You could really feel the states become united. We became the United States of America.
I'm sure that had I not been a coach, I would have been some form of a teacher.
Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to see and listen to what they don't want to hear.
Jim Harbaugh has done a great job of coaching in the NFL no matter how you put it.
It's been the video game ever since I got out of coaching. Even when I was an announcer, fewer and fewer people remembered me as 'Coach,' and as the years went on, people just started knowing me from the game.
I've often said, 'If I had one drive to win a game to this day, and I had a quarterback to pick, I would pick Kenny.' Snake was a lot cooler than I was. He was a perfect quarterback and a perfect Raider. When you think about the Raiders, you think about Ken Stabler.
It's a lot easier to get a suit than it is to get a coach.
Al Davis has been the biggest influence in my professional football life. I mean, he was a guy that gave me an opportunity, one, to get into professional football in 1967 as an assistant coach, and then at the age of 32, giving me the opportunity to be the head coach.
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.
There's so many kids who only know me from the video game.
When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a game for computers.
I think comparisons are odious.
I get a certain feeling when I go to Lambeau field in Green Bay. Soldier field in Chicago is special to me. Those are the places that I really like. The stadiums.
The quarterback has to get rid of the ball quickly, so there's not a lot of time to make moves to gain separation.
I've never eaten just a few bites of things I liked in my life.
I was a coach, and I put a lot of education and experience into coaching.
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.'
Nothing jazzes me up like football. I've acquired more passion of the years, not less. Not to love it wouldn't make sense.
When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to.
Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.
When the going gets tough, I'm not always sure what you do. I'm not saying that I know how to fix everything when the going gets tough, but I do know this: when the going goes tough, you don't quit. And you don't fold up. And you don't go in the other direction.
There's so many kids who only know me from the video game. And they want to know if I'm home - and if I have a video game I can give them on Halloween. And sometimes they're surprised to learn there actually is a 'Madden.'
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 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.
The thing that I always respected about Bruce Arians was, when he was at Pittsburgh, he let Ben Roethlisberger decide what he liked. I used to do that. You can put something in and force-feed it to a quarterback. But if he doesn't like it and have his heart in it, it's not going to be as good as when he really likes something.
One of the biggest gaps in sports is the difference between the winning and losing teams of the Super Bowl. They don't invite the losing team to the White House. They don't have parades for them. They don't throw confetti on them.
Nobody, not even the head coach, would do anything to the football unilaterally, such as adjust the amount of pressure in a ball, without the quarterback not knowing. It would have to be the quarterback's idea.
We need to let the referee's sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says 'knockdowns.' Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it's legal, we'll make excuses for them.
Any defensive coordinator is worried about two things: a running quarterback and a deep ball. You know, don't get beat deep and don't let the quarterback run, because a big part of your defense can't account for the quarterback as a runner, so he gets a free run.
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.
It takes about three times as long to explain to someone why you won't give them an autograph as it does to actually give them an autograph.
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.
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.
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.'
If you go back to the history of the 'Madden' game, I was probably on the cover of it half the time. So if I was to believe there was a curse, I would also have to believe I'd been cursed. And I've never had that feeling.
You wouldn't do something for a receiver to catch the ball if the quarterback couldn't throw it.
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.
Discipline is knowing what you're supposed to do and doing it as best you can... On third down and short yardage, the Raiders don't jump offside. That's discipline - not a coat and tie, not a clean shave.
I'd like to work with kids in special education - younger kids.
I've always said winning's the great deodorant, and conversely, when you have a bad record, everything stinks, and everything starts to unravel, and everything falls apart.
You're not going to eliminate concussions. Anytime you hit your head, you have a chance of getting a concussion, in any sport, too. I think we have to learn more about it. Part of it is rules, part of it is equipment, part of it is medical studies, knowing more about the brain.
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?
