Hall Of Famer Charles Haley Calls Tom Brady A Cheater, Says Super Bowl Wins 'Tainted'
BOSTON (CBS) -- The New England Patriots are now four-time Super Bowl champions, and with Sunday night's victory, many believe that Tom Brady cemented his spot as the greatest quarterback of all time.
Others, however, remain unconvinced.
Charles Haley was announced as a 2015 Hall of Fame inductee over the weekend, so one might expect him to be spreading some pretty positive vibes. Yet that wasn't the case when Haley, a former teammate of Joe Montana, was asked by the Talk of Fame Network if Brady is better than Montana.
"Joe didn't have to cheat," Haley said. "You know what? I've lost respect. I've lost all respect [for Brady]. Because when your integrity is challenged in the game of football, to me, all his Super Bowls are tainted. All his Super Bowls are tainted. because you've got to say, 'OK, it just didn't happen overnight.' So now, who wants that shadow over them? And I could be wrong, but I realize this: 12 balls deflated and 12 ain't, and they're all out there in the same place. Then you've got [Bill] Belichick coming on three different times trying to explain it, you know something is wrong."
Haley of course was referencing DeflateGate, the investigation launched by the Colts during the AFC Championship Game which accused the Patriots of skirting NFL rules by using underinflated footballs. However, Haley's insistence that he "could be wrong" was prescient, because he missed on a number of the details. As it stands right now, only one of the Patriots' 12 footballs came in at 2 PSI under the low threshold set by the league, and the full report has yet to be completed.
Despite that, Haley's mind seems made up: Brady and the Patriots are cheaters. So much so, in fact, that he had to bust out the third person.
"This is my belief. This is what Charles Haley believes -- I believe it's going to come back to haunt him one day," Charles Haley said of Charles Haley's beliefs. "If the league doesn't come down on this guy, then ... everybody is talking about it. Nobody believes it was by accident. It is what it is. And you know what? I'm not going to take not one of his Super Bowl rings away from him. But it's just sad that it has to be painted like people are doing right now. Hopefully they'll come out and let us know what really happened. Then all the mystery is gone."
Brady tied Montana on Sunday night with his fourth Super Bowl victory and passed Montana for most touchdowns thrown in Super Bowl history. He also set the record for most completions in a Super Bowl (37).
Haley also said that Brady's four-touchdown performance in Super Bowl XLIX does not prove that he can throw with properly inflated footballs.
"No -- how'd he redeem himself? What'd he throw? Every time he tried to throw deep, it didn't work or he threw it in the ground," Haley said. "He threw all those Wes Welker -- not Wes Welker, but the other guy -- little five-yard passes or whatever, then he broke 'em."
We assume he meant Julian Edelman, who caught nine passes for 109 yards and a touchdown on Sunday. Given his lack of attention to that development, his opinions on Brady and DeflateGate ought to be taken with a grain of salt.
Brady's probably not too shaken up about it, either.
