BOOM! The NFL Announced It Is Going To Honor John Madden Annually During The Thanksgiving Games With Field Logos, Helmet Stickers, Broadcast Specials, And Much More
NFL Communications- Few things are more synonymous with one another than John Madden and Thanksgiving. Beginning this year, the National Football League honors Madden with the "John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration," a yearly, multi-faceted celebration of the late great icon's indelible legacy.
The inaugural "John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration" on Thursday, November 24 will feature special broadcast tributes as CBS, FOX and NBC will create their own segments dedicated to the football legend. These tributes will be interspersed throughout the broadcast of each game (Bills vs. Lions at 12:30 PM ET on CBS, Giants vs. Cowboys at 4:30 PM ET on FOX and Patriots vs. Vikings at 8:20 PM ET on NBC). A recording of Madden – who called 20 Thanksgiving Day NFL games during his broadcasting career – discussing Thanksgiving and the holiday's special relationship to football will also serve as the lead-in to each of three games.
Live game audio of all three Thanksgiving Day games will be broadcast nationally by Westwood One and SiriusXM.
Additionally, each network will select a "Madden Player of the Game." Immediately after each game, the selected player will receive a $10,000 donation in their name from the NFL Foundation to the youth or high school football program of their choice, as the topic of youth football was important to Madden.
The inaugural "John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration" will also feature:
- Special "John Madden Thanksgiving" logo will be placed at the 25-yard lines of each field and a sticker on the back of each player's helmet depicting the iconic image of Madden with his fist up in the air
- Madden and Thanksgiving-related programming will air throughout the week on all NFL Media platforms, and the NFL's radio broadcast partners Westwood One and SiriusXM NFL Radio
- EA Sports – creators of the iconic Madden NFL video game series – presents "Game Before The Game," a Madden NFL 23 competition between two opposing players from Thanksgiving Day competing teams
- The @NFL Instagram and Snapchat Thanksgiving AR lens will allow fans to determine "The Best Part of Thanksgiving" via a randomizer. Users will hear the iconic "BOOM!" from Madden when the randomizer lands, followed by one of his various Thanksgiving Day in-booth sound bites and surrounded by an illustrated Madden graphic
- Gabe Gault – renowned Metaverse artist and son of former NFL wide receiver Willie Gault – will paint a John Madden tribute mural in the Metaverse. The Metaverse mural will feature Madden throughout his career as a player, coach and broadcaster with his famous Thanksgiving quote stylized and woven through the art. Content will live on NFL social platforms, showing the design process and final outcome
Pardon my shock since it's not every day that the NFL actually does something good unless there is public discord about something in their league turned up to OUTRAGE level. However, I had a giant grin on my face reading that entire extremely sterile press release.
Never has a person in the history of mankind deserved a tribute on a specific day more than John Madden deserves a Thanksgiving Day tribute. Iron Man would deserve one for his ultimate sacrifice in Endgame if he wasn't fictional and a basic history lesson will teach you that Jesus wasn't born anywhere near December 25th. However, John Madden is just as much Thanksgiving as turkey, football, and realizing you hate that parade by the time the 4th Broadway number comes around.
I mean someone was able to put together a video that was longer than 4 minutes long just about John Madden's love of Thanksgiving.
That video, which I was grinning from ear-to-ear the entire time, proves that Madden worthy of a field logo, helmet sticker, a mural in the Metaverse (at least until the Metaverse goes bankrupt), and so much more. In fact, I say why stop there? The Mayflower story is played out as fuck and will probably start an argument at your Thanksgiving table between your problematic grandpa and crunchy aunt. Nobody has a problem with John Madden, so every Thanksgiving people should just talk about his life story.
The one thing I am torn about is if the Madden Turducken should still be given out since that was the most Madden part of Thanksgiving and how I learned turducken even existed.
JEFF KOWALSKY. Getty Images.Blogger's Note: I had to look up how the fuck Madden favorite Barry Sanders didn't get a turkey leg in a Lions win. It's because this game took place the year that Barry retired
You know what? I think you keep the turducken because something tells me John would've wanted it around.
I was going to go into a long diatribe about why John Madden is like Thanksgiving because they aren't something you always think about but they were always great and you looked forward to seeing them when they were in season. But I think you guys got the point of the blog by now. If you didn't, you can watch his best calls below.
God I love and miss that man. Can't wait to add the Madden honors to all the other NFL Thanksgiving traditions like the giant Salvation Army pot at the Cowboys game, being terrified of the players my fantasy opponent has against the Lions, and making it to halftime of the night game before saying fuck this it's time for bed because of a toxic mix of age, weight, and excitement for leftovers the next day as well as all the deals on the Barstool Store for Black Friday. BUY BUY BUY (Sorry, just getting in some practice before The Eye Of Portnoy starts looking for slackers like Large).
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