Madden Readies Super Bowl All-Timers

Broadway Joe Namath tossed softly to John Mackey, priming the old cannon, and former Colts linebacker Mike Curtis sat stony-faced in front of his locker, apparently ready to kill or maim.

That’s when coach John Madden walked through the locker-room door.

“I swear Mike Curtis thought we were getting ready to go out and be a team,” Madden said. “If somebody would have walked in and said he was on the other side, he would have slapped him.”

Actually, Madden and a Fox camera crew were getting ready to shoot the “All-Time All-Madden Super Bowl Team,” which airs as a 90-minute special Sunday, kicking off Fox’s 5 hours of Super Bowl pregame coverage.

“Namath looked just like himself throwing, you know that hunched-over motion he has,” Madden said. “It looked just like Joe Namath. I think there were a few guys in there that really thought we were going to play.”

That reminded Madden of the remark of another all-time Madden Super Bowler, Ray Nitschke. “He always says he feels like he has one hit left in him, and he wants to take it to his grave,” Madden said.

“I think they all think that. I know one thing. Those linebackers all think they have one more hit in them. They all believe they could go down on the goal line and knock somebody’s helmet off.”

The all-time Super Bowl team will include 39 players from all eras of Super Bowl play, chosen the same way Madden chooses his regular-season all-Madden types, by the amount of blood on their jerseys and the size of the dirt clod in their facemasks.

To make it fair, Madden was not allowed to pick any of the players he coached, such as Ken Stabler or Dave Casper; any of his Fox co-workers, such as Terry Bradshaw or Howie Long, or any current players, such as Jerry Rice.

“Otherwise, that would have been the whole team,” he said. “Now, we’re down to a more manageable group that we could make into a history of the Super Bowl, and that’s kind of what I wanted to do. I think from Super Bowls I and II, I’ve got Willie Wood and Herb Adderley, Super Bowl III Joe Namath, Super Bowl IV Otis Taylor, and so on.”

Madden said he resisted the temptation to name an all-Madden MVP or even pick a starting lineup.

“It would have been impossible,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. We’d just keep running them in and out of there, one after another, and I’m sure we’d kill anybody.”

Now, who’s sounding like he’s ready to play a game?