Friday, November 28th
The cruiser left the hotel this morning at 9:15 with a relatively light load with just Coach, Fred, Drew, J.J., Joe and I headed for the Vikings facility. Upon arrival we went straight into meetings with Coach Childress, Leslie Frazier and Pat Williams followed by practice and then finished up meetings with Gus Frerotte and Adrian Peterson after practice. 

We were just pulling away from the facility when Bud Grant, the old Vikings coach, came over to the bus to say hello. He and Coach were talking about hunting and Coach Grant just got back from hunting and so of course Coach asks if he got anything. The response was, "well yes, but that is not the point anymore. The point is I am still able to do it at 81 years old!" 

They continued to talk about coaching and Coach Grant says, "You know how many old coaches have a good enough relationship with their old teams that they still have an office they go to every day?"  We all begin to ponder and Coach Grant interupts to say "None." we all laugh because here we are guessing and the joke is on us. He already knows the answer, he is the only one!  After a few other subjects were touched on we were on our way back to the hotel for Vikings film.

For dinner our friend Michele Tafoya invited us to her house for some Italian and a nice relief from the same hotel and restaurant bit we get every week.  After a bunch of laughs and getting caught up we called it a night and made our way back to our hotel and let Tafoya get some sleep before her early morning flight to Houston for Monday night football.

Thursday, November 27th
Thursday we woke up in Nebraska and as is most traditions the Thanksgiving Day Parade was turned on and then followed by all three of the NFL games. Fortunately for us we have the ability to watch the satellite on one television and the VCR on another so we were able to watch the live games as well as both the Vikings and Bears games from last week. For our intermission we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Lincoln, Nebraska. It happened to have been one of our stops on the way home from Washington two weeks ago and Nick waited on us again. As some of you know Cracker Barrel is a fairly frequent stop of ours, a brief flashback, on a previous visit I tried to order the vegetable of the day and learned it was "cornbread stuffin' that day" and I couldn't believe they tried to pass "stuffin" off as a vegetable. So of course that came up again and J.J. was quick to point out that not only did I not get it but I pouted the rest of the meal and then continued to pout on the cruiser after we left the restaurant and now that the story is a couple years old I continued to pout for a couple of weeks. Now here we sit and I was the only one that followed Thanksgiving tradition and had the turkey special. Wouldn't you know it came with cornbread stuffin'! 

The cruiser got rolling again while we watched the end of the Bears game and the NFL Network game between the Cardinals and Eagles and pulled into Minneapolis right at 9:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 26th
Wednesday morning the cruiser left the Bay Area at 11:00 a.m. Since we would be traveling during the holiday, along for the ride came a turducken. As some of you may or may not know a turducken is a chicken stuffed inside a duck that has a specific type of dressing stuffed inside a turkey which also has a different kind of dressing inside of it. Thank goodness all of the stuffing happens where our turducken originated, the Gourmet Butcher Block in Gretna, Louisiana. The other important part, the cooking, was taken care of by Cliff and Joan Thomas, who work for Coach in his office. All we had to do was round up the turducken and heat it up for a little while on the cruiser and a feast was had! Along the way we stuck in the tape of the first meeting between the Bears and Vikings to get the weeks studies rolling.

Sunday, November 23rd
Because we are on the West Coast, everything is moved up a few hours, breakfast was at 8:30 followed by the graphics and pre-produced pieces tapes and then a short break before heading to the stadium at 1:15 p.m.  The game turned out to be another chapter in a great book between these two teams, picking up right where it left off last year and finishing just a little bit different with Adam Vinatieri coming through in the clutch as we are so accustomed to seeing, unlike last year in this game. 

Saturday, November 22nd
Colts day started a little earlier than normal with breakfast at 9:15 and then the film of last week’s Colts win over the Texans.  Peyton Manning looks like he is coming back into his old form but the offense still looks to be struggling just a little bit.  The defense without Bob Sanders is getting by with Melvin Bullitt replacing him but he is no Bob Sanders.  During film we learned the Colts were coming in an hour early so the editorial meeting that was to be held at 2:00 would be postponed and held on the bus ride back to the hotel from the Colts hotel. 

Once all of that was finished Coach, Drew, Vinny and I had a sandwich in the lobby and then retreated to our rooms to watch the Hatton/Malignaggi fight, what a dissapointment that was. 

Friday, November 21st
Friday morning we hit the hotel at 8:30 after Coach's KCBS radio show to hit the shower and get ready to leave at 10:15 for the Chargers facility. Practice was first on the schedule followed by meetings with the coaches and a few players. 

After the meetings the cruiser brought us back to hotel for film and then the famous Seafood Buffet at Aviara with Coach, Dick, Fred, Drew and myself. A short lobby hang followed and then off to our rooms.

Thursday, November 20th
The Cruiser pulled out of the Bay Area around 8:45 Thursday evening heading for San Diego. Along for the ride was J.J., Willie, Coach and I and some Popeye's chicken. We watched the first half of last week's Chargers game against the Steelers and then a little more than half of the Colts game against the Texans from last week. 

Sunday, November 16th
Sunday morning breakfast was served at 8:45 followed by our editorial meeting and then of course the pre-produced packages and graphics tapes.  The cruiser was set to depart the hotel at 4:15 for the stadium with some help from Washington D.C.'s finest we arrived right at 4:45 and began the final preparations for the evening's telecast.  The game was a very physical game, typical of these NFC East matchups and the Cowboys were able to keep their season alive with a 14-10 win.  After the game Coach, Willie, J.J. and I loaded up on the cruiser, and because of the long trip across the country, Joe came out to lend a hand getting home. 

Saturday, November 15th
Saturday got off to kind of a slow start, we were given the wrong film for the Cowboys so we watched the defense against the Giants again that we had already watched the week before when we were studying for the Giants last week while Vinny Rao went out to the Redskins facility to get the film from the Week 4 game, Redskins at the Cowboys. 

Following film we had a lengthy break before departing for the Cowboys hotel. I had gone out for some sandwiches to have on the cruiser. Upon my return Vinny was sitting in a lower lobby reading, waiting for his room to be cleaned.  He told me the Chancellor of Germany had just walked by.  We continued to talk about directions and length of time to the Cowboys hotel and various other things and he says "oh here she comes again".  After she passes we kind of look at each other and he kind of chuckles, here we are sitting here worried about cruiser departures, how long it is going to take to get to the stadium, food at the meeting and here comes the Chancellor of Germany coming from a meeting to figure out how to fix the world economy...

Friday, November 14^th
The cruiser pulled away from the hotel at 9:15 this morning to go to Redskins park and start the day with a meeting with Greg Blache, the defensive coordinator, followed by practice and then meetings with Jim Zorn and few of the players.  During practice Casey Rabach kept yelling at the P.R. director that was standing with us and finally he says to Coach "some of the offensive lineman want to know if you ever received a letter from Ethan Albright, the Redskins long snapper, two years ago in regards to him having the lowest rating of any player in that years version of Madden." 

It is really funny how some guys take that stuff so seriously.  Someone has to be last and what better person to hold the title than a long snapper, no offense to all of you long snappers out there. 

After our meetings the cruiser brought us back into Washington D.C. On the way Vinny Rao called and said the secret service was all over our hotel with bomb sniffing dogs.  The Chancellor of Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, is in town for the G20 Washington summit and staying at our hotel. 

After our arrival we all went to the meeting room to watch film of the Redskins in their Monday night game two weeks ago against the Steelers.  Following film Coach went up and had some room service and laid low for the rest of the night.

Thursday, November 13th
The cruiser pulled out of New York City at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon southbound for Washington D.C.  J.J. and Willie had picked up some Sylvia's for the ride. Of course they had to pick up some short ribs and naturally that is where Coach went for his lunch. Not much was said but I know Sylvia's has more experience making short ribs than I do, I am sure they far out classed anything I have done. 

We watched the television tape of the first game between the Redskins and Cowboys down in Dallas to get a feel for what we might see on Sunday. We finally hit our nations capital around 6:45, traffic was a bear! Dinner followed shortly after our arrival at the hotel with our normal six, plus Susan, Dick's wife.  After dinner we quickly retreated to Dick's room for the kickoff of the Thursday night game on the NFL Network between the Jets and Patriots. What a great game that was. It sure looks like Brett Favre still has it, leading his team on back to back 7-minute drives on their last possession in regulation and then in overtime. 

Oh by the way, Coach's sons team won their last freshman football game of the season tonight giving them a 7-3 record for the season and 101 victories for their careers.

Saturday, November 8th
Saturday started with film of the Giants thrashing of the Cowboys last week.  As good as the Giants looked, the Cowboys looked bad.  The Giants just imposed their will on the Cowboys and offensively their line just wore down Dallas' defense.  After film we had a couple hour break before meeting with the Giants at their hotel. 

When we got back to our hotel after the Giants Coach Robinson met us and we had dinner and talked about what we think we will see on Sunday night.

Friday, November 7th
Eagles day started with meeting with Andy Reid and Jim Johnson at the Eagles facility then lunch, which is one of the best lunches we have at a facility all year.  "Junk food Friday", so of course, I felt right at home.  Chicken wings, stuffed chicken, and the chef brought us out some ribs fresh out of the smoker, boy were those good!  Following lunch was practice and then back in to meet with a few players before heading back to our hotel for film study of their game last week. 

After film Coach and the crew went to a friend’s house for dinner and the rest of us hung at the hotel for the remainder of the evening.

Thursday, November 6th

The cruiser left New York City at 2:00 with Sandy Montag on board for the short ride down to the Philadelphia area. On our way we stopped by NFL Films to take a tour of their multi-million dollar facility in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. Our tour was guided by none other than Steve Sabol himself. After the tour, we headed to our hotel. 

As is our Thursday night tradition we all met downstairs for dinner in the hotel in anticipation of the Denver - Cleveland match up on the NFL Network.  There were many topics discussed over dinner. The first of course was the update of Vinny's use of the "L" word. The pressure was on Vinny this week. It happened over sushi and some shrimp tempura. I think somehow the wasabi was involved. The worst part was that Reena thought he was kidding! 

Thursday nights are also Coach's sons freshman football games out in the Bay Area that Mrs. Madden gives us updates on. This week was a little different. The Maddens were going for their 100th coaching victory! The feat was accomplished by the Foothill Falcons against Livermore in a 24-8 triumph. That of course spurned the conversation about coaches who have 100 wins in the NFL and sons who have 100 coaching victories at any other level. It was a big, big night for the Madden family!

Following all of that excitement we went up to a quieter place to watch the football game that came down to the wire.

Sunday, November 2nd
Sunday morning was the same as most with breakfast followed by the editorial meeting and then the graphics and pre-produced packages tapes.  Departure for the stadium was at 4:45 and because of our propensity to live by "Lombardi time", we as Coach says "got there before we left", arrival at the stadium before we were scheduled to leave the hotel.  The game was one of the best we have had this year.  With Bill Belichick making some un-Belichick like mistakes in the 2nd half with a challenge that didn't make a lot of sense costing them a timeout followed by Matt Cassel using another timeout on the next drive and then their third with about 11:30 minutes left in the 4th quarter in a situation that looked like an obvious situation to kick the field field being down 15-12 and a 4th and a full yard to go he had left his offense on the field. 

After the game Coach, J.J., Joe and I loaded up with a special guest for the 12 hour ride to New York.  Ray Stein was taking the ride with us back home.

Saturday, November 1st
Breakfast this morning came with a little twist.  Doc Rivers was in town with his Celtics and came in to join us for a bit before we watched film.  It was really interesting to hear he and Coach talk about players and their personalities and their ability to comprehend and play the game regardless of what game it is.  Doc was talking about Rajon Rondo and his ability to comprehend the game and his basketball I.Q. and what to do with players like that that struggle with their attention the 2nd and 3rd time through the game plan.  Coach went back through some of his players that were like that and the approach that he took. 

After Doc went to watch his own film we started studying the Patriots film and they, like the Colts, are not the same team we have been used to watching over the last decade.  The offense obviously is not the same without Tom Brady and the defense looks like it may have a couple of liabilities in their linebacking unit, guys that are hanging around maybe just a little too long. 

The cruiser left the hotel at 4:50 for the Patriots hotel to meet with the coaches and a few players and then back to our hotel for a little lobby hang and then up to bed.