Tributes have been pouring in for John Madden ever since the legendary former NFL head coach, broadcaster and pitchman died unexpectedly Tuesday morning at the age of 85. Many have touched on Madden’s announcing partnership with Pat Summerall, which forged an indelible mark on NFL fans across several generations.

The first game Madden and Summerall announced together was in 1979 for CBS. Summerall’s partner on the network’s top announcing team, Tom Brookshier, was off to introduce his daughter at a debutante ball.

Madden had retired from coaching in 1978 after 10 years with the Raiders, which included one Super Bowl championship. He began broadcasting for CBS in 1979, first working with Bob Costas in a tryout, and subsequently several other play-by-play men including Frank Gleiber, Dick Stockton, Gary Bender and Vin Scully.

On his first day with Summerall, Madden, afraid of heights in a live shot outside the booth, was noticeably ill.

“Sweat droplets ran down his face and he was flushed,” Summerall wrote in his autobiography. “I worried that he might be having a heart attack. If not, he certainly didn’t appear ready for prime time.”

Nevertheless, Madden settled down when they returned to the booth, and the pair quickly found chemistry.

“For two guys who had never worked together before, we fell into a natural rhythm very quickly,” Summerall wrote. “With other temporary partners, I had often resorted to hand signals to let them know when I was done speaking, but it wasn’t necessary in John’s case. We were in sync.”

CBS had grown concerned over the partnership of Summerall and Brookshier. While the duo received plenty of praise that they were just like family members inside viewers’ living rooms, they were a rowdy, heavy-drinking pair.

Their partying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel during the lead-up to Super Bowl XIV in 1980 was a tipping point. Both announcers seemed to be hungover during the broadcast, irking CBS execs.

“So it opened the question: Does this make sense?” Ted Shaker a former CBS Sports executive producer said, regarding keeping Summerall and Brookshier together, in an episode of NFL Films’ series “A Football Life.”

During Super Bowl XV the following year in New Orleans, the duo were just spectators (NBC broadcast the game), but Summerall said that their hotel party room tab stretched “all the way across the lobby.” Brookshier compared it to the Magna Carta.

In the fall of 1981, two years after they were paired as temporary partners, Madden and Summerall were tapped as CBS’ top NFL announcing team — after Summerall beat out Scully following two months of live auditions. Madden and Summerall remained together, at CBS and later Fox, through Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 when the Patriots beat the Rams.

The pair worked wonders. Summerall, who died in 2013 at age 82, was succinct and understated. Madden’s enthusiasm for the game magically crossed through the television screen, akin to how he burst through a wall in a classic Miller Lite commercial.

“I don’t know if anyone learned from Pat Summerall what the secret to his success was, but I’ll tell you what it was,” Madden said in his biography written by Bryan Burwell. “A lot of play-by-play guys think they have to lead the analyst where they want him to go, which is a really huge mistake.

“Too many of them often lead the analyst to a place where he doesn’t want to go, or even worse, where he’s not prepared to go. But Pat’s genius was that instead of leading you, he would always tag you. In other words, he would let you start and talk about something you felt was significant, then let you go, and then put his commentary on the end of whatever you were saying.”

Lance Barrow, a producer who worked with Madden and Summerall at CBS Sports, echoed those sentiments for how Summerall would tee up his broadcast partners.

“What made him wonderful, and one of the best who’s ever done that job, he let the analyst — be it Tom Brookshier, John Madden, or Ken Venturi or Tony Trabert on golf and tennis — he’d make them the star, and he let them be what they were supposed to be,” Barrow said in 2016. “Analyze the action. Analyze the game. And Pat would get them from Point A to Point B or Point C, and he never got in the way of his analyst.”

Bob Stenner, who worked with the duo at CBS and Fox, concurred, providing an illuminating analogy.

“What’s interesting is that they were not the kind of guys who would hang out together, but on Sundays, they just complemented each other,” Stenner said. “It was just a great style. Pat didn’t say much. John could be all over the place like you put in a pinhole in a balloon and it would fly all over the place; Pat had an ability to land safely.”

Stenner spoke about how the pair’s authenticity and enthusiasm resonated with audiences.

“I always preached that you can’t be a different guy when that red light goes on,” he said. “You’ve gotta just be you. It’s not like you’re an actor, where you’re one way before a game and another during it. That really doesn’t work. People see through it. Don’t take the viewers for granted. They’re smarter than we think.

“I don’t think there’s a big secret to being good. The secret is just to have people like you. Likability. I don’t like tension. There’s enough s–t going on. I just want to relax on Sunday. I don’t want to sit on the edge of my chair. I want to sit back in my chair and enjoy the day.

“Pat and John allowed you to do that. You felt like you could approach them on the street and tell them you liked their work without their jumping down your throat. They were people’s people. They just were. To me, that’s the secret. You’ve got to want people like you. Don’t be phony about it. Just be who you are.”