Friday; January 7
John Madden is proof to me that it is difficult for me to completely dislike anything. Coach Madden was a Raider – and I don’t like the Raiders. Growing up as a Broncos fan, silver and black were colors of anathema. I think that I disliked just about everything about the Raiders – except John Madden. Since the coach’s passing last week, I have been doing some reading about his observations about life and one stuck out to me. Interesting, it isn’t a great life lesson – or maybe it is. Tucked in with a bunch of other quotes was the observation, “When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to.”. While this simplistic observation about a quarterback throwing the ball might be a “no-duh” moment, it also leads to the question, now what? When the quarterback’s arm is hit – and the ball doesn’t do what he intended to do – he has to adjust. If he throws an interception off the deflection, he needs to make sure the defensive guy doesn’t turn it into a pick-six