Jim Williams: Madden, Michaels prepare for Hall of Fame weekend
Jim Williams, The Examiner
Aug 5, 2006 5:00 AM (5 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 1 of 4,812 articles

WASHINGTON - This is a special weekend for both John Madden and NBC Sports as they prepare for the annual Hall of Fame game, the official start of the NFL preseason.


Madden, perhaps the best NFL color analyst of all time, will be honored with his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction for his coaching talents as the former boss of the Oakland Raiders.

So on Sunday night when NBC Sports returns to the NFL business at 8 p.m. with the Raiders and Eagles, it will be with the best broadcast crew in the business. Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer make up an award-winning trio.

I talked to Madden and Michaels about this special weekend.


Madden on preparing for the Hall of Fame Game and his induction: “I am going to have plenty of time before the telecast to prepare. I went to the Raiders training camp last week to watch them practice. I’m going to talk to the Eagles and get ready for the game as much as I can with what I am going through before the game. But that is where you have to have a great partner and we all know I have a great partner in Al Michaels. He has always been a clean-up guy and I will probably need a clean-up Sunday more than I ever have.”


Michaels on the Hall of Fame Game: “John is going to be running on a lot of adrenaline on Sunday and even if he did zero preparation, he could still go into the booth and be the best analyst that ever lived. With his wealth of knowledge, it is going to be a phenomenal weekend. It is great to be a part of it and I think that to have John in that situation is going to be great. There is going to be a glow that surrounds this whole weekend; it’s our opening game telecast, and all the NFL is going to be at the Hall of Fame. This is going to be a preseason game that is going to be different from all the other games.”

Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer.
Examiner