For the third straight season, the NFL will honor John Madden on Thanksgiving. The John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration began in 2022 following the famed broadcaster and coach’s passing in 2021, and it will see Madden honored during all three games this Thursday. That’s going to take an interesting dimension for NBC’s night game between the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers, which will see an opening featuring a road trip with the original “Madden Cruiser” from its home at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio to Lambeau Field in Wisconsin for this game.
That two-minute opening will be narrated by J.J. Johnson, who drove the cruiser (the first of five) on this trip last week, drove Madden for his final six years in weekly NFL broadcasting (2003-05 with ABC, then 2006-08 with NBC), and regularly drives one of NBC’s Sunday Night Football production trucks. Johnson spoke to Joe Reedy of the Associated Press about this, saying the trek from Ohio to Wisconsin (which also included stops in Chicago at Soldier Field and a Boys and Girls Club) brought back memories of Madden for him:
“As I was driving between locations, the crew would ask me questions, or I’d share stories, and it just brought back so many fond memories. And, for me, it’s honoring John in this way,” Johnson said.
…“One of our production trucks has a dedication to John on the outside of it. And when it comes to Thanksgiving, when we step out the door, we’re going out to do our jobs on game day, we think of one person, we think of John, and it’s Thanksgiving, and you have to smile. Love of football and the love of Thanksgiving and now we’re here in Lambeau Field, one of his favorite locations. I mean, this is a game he would love to broadcast. And we just go out with pride to do the best job we can in honor of John.”
For a look at this cruiser, here’s a Madden-narrated tour of it the Hall posted last year after they put it back on display (Madden donated it to them in 2018, and it was on display there through 2021, then went on a road trip to Las Vegas for the Raiders in 2022, then returned to Canton last year):
John Madden’s world-famous bus, The Madden Cruiser, has arrived at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where visitors can tour the bus in person.
Here, the late Madden provides a narrated tour of the famous vehicle, which remains unchanged.
Visit the Hall: https://t.co/WCCdGEshjB pic.twitter.com/PpQpRvIprp
— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) June 1, 2023
The NBC honoring of Madden will go beyond just the opening for this game, which sets up as a pretty good matchup between the 5-6 Dolphins and 8-3 Packers. The network also has something special in store postgame, where they’ll present turducken to the winning team and turkey legs to the game MVPs. And that will come from a former Packer and All-Madden pick, LeRoy Butler, as NBC outlined in a release:
This year’s turducken – a Madden-favorite dish that’s traditionally served to the winning team’s players in the postgame interview – will be prepared by Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Packer LeRoy Butler, who has published multiple cookbooks since retiring from the NFL in 2001. Aside from being credited with creating the famed “Lambeau Leap,” Butler was named to Madden’s 1994 “All-Madden Team,” a yearly list of players personally selected by Madden who best represented the game of football and how he believed it should be played.
It’s neat to see the NFL and its broadcast partners continue to honor Madden, especially on Thanksgiving. The famed broadcaster called 20 Thanksgiving games for CBS and Fox between 1982 and 2001, and played a significant role in various traditions on the day, including the turducken. And this segment with the original Madden Cruiser seems like a great way to pay tribute to him, given that vehicle’s importance in NFL and broadcast history.
