Following John Madden passing away Tuesday, Bill Belichick spent the majority of his video press conference Wednesday remembering the football legend, who he called "a good friend."
“Our condolences to the Madden family,” Belichick said in an opening statement that lasted close to five minutes. “It’s a huge loss for the NFL, professional football. John is just a tremendous person to be around. I think we probably all set out to try to have a good professional career [and] John had about five of them. He set the standard for coaching in his era. … Certainly did a lot for the league and the competitiveness of the league. He was a great champion for minorities and minority scouting. And some of the great players that they had with the Raiders, you know, from some of the smaller Black colleges, that he and coach (Al) Davis brought into the organization. He moved to broadcasting, certainly increased the popularity of the game singlehandedly by quite a bit. I don’t know how you’d ever measure it. … A lot of people who probably didn’t even care about football found John entertaining and probably watched football because of him."
Later on, Belichick was asked a question about the Madden video game and if he's ever played it?
“I haven’t played it in quite awhile," he said. "I know when my kids were growing up they would play it and I’d watch them and they’d beat me.”
Here's video of Belichick's opening statement.