'WSJ' on Madden: Time to Hang It Up, Geezer

If you are even a casual football fan, you already know that John Madden, who will be providing color commentary for the Super Bowl on Sunday, is frequently inane beyond measure, annoyingly infatuated with certain players and coaches, deeply weird looking, and in way too many commercials. But is he also just too damn old to be on TV anymore?

That's the question raised by today's Wall Street Journal article on the NBC analyst and former coach. Headlined "John Madden's Missed Tackles," the story, by Matthew Futterman, looks at a string of recent Madden miscues and suggests, not so subtly, that they might be related to his advanced age. (Madden is 72.)

Of course, Futterman can't come right out and say that it's time Madden confined his ramblings to the day room of a retirement home, lest the AARP feast on his flesh, so I've included translations from the newspaperese into English.

Futterman: "[A]s exalted as his position has become, and as beloved as he is, Mr. Madden has, at times this season, struggled with the facts."

Translation: John Madden is an old person who forgets things and makes other things up.

Futterman: "Nostalgia may be a large part of his enduring appeal: According to Scarborough Sports Marketing, 69% of all NFL fans are over the age of 35."

Translation: The only people who still like Madden are other old people.

Futterman: "When he signed a six-year contract with NBC in 2005 for roughly $25 million, the network decided to hire his oldest friend, former coach John Robinson, to sit next to him in the booth to help him handle the onslaught of player substitutions."

Translation: Unlike other sportscasters, Madden needs a pal to help him remember people's names and occasionally wipe his chin.

Futterman: "Madden...conveys the sense that the game is getting overcomplicated. He laments the loss of dynastic teams and the limited time players now spend in pads at training camp, which he says hurts fundamental skills. He doesn't like the increasing reliance on technology to run a game guys with clipboards and whistles used to handle just fine."

Translation: John Madden is your cranky old grandpa, complaining about how there are too many buttons on the remote control and boring everyone with his stories about how a loaf of bread used to cost a nickel.