As a five-time Super Bowl champion, Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end Charles Haley has been around some great quarterbacks. In between stints with the San Francisco 49ers (1986-91, 1998-99), he played for the Dallas Cowboys (1992-96), and maintains a presence around the Cowboys training complex. When Haley sat down with Newy Scruggs of NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Haley said that Dak Prescott reminds him of one of his former teammates, 49ers great Joe Montana.
“Dak reminds me of Joe,” Haley said. “He’s funny. He’s charismatic. … They had something to prove. They had a chip on their shoulder.”
Haley also relates to Prescott’s journey to make it to Mississippi State and eventually becoming the Cowboys’ quarterback.
“He came from nothing, like me,” Haley said. “So guess what? What can you do? How can you hurt someone that came from nothing, that had to pull himself up from the bootstraps and walk out on the stage wearing that star on his head and go? What can you say? What can you do?”
Last season, while Tony Romo was out injured, Prescott would often refer to the Cowboys as Romo’s team. Haley says he told Prescott to take ownership of the team, which went 13-3 in the regular season and earned a spot in the playoffs.
“I tell him all the time, I say, ‘Man, this is your show. This is your rodeo,’” Haley said. “I told him that after game [five] when he was saying it was Romo’s show. I wanted to punch him in his chest. Hey, hold up. You’ve won four in a row. Then, you win five a row. Now walk out on the field before the game and say, ‘Who’s team is this?’ If he didn’t say, ‘My team’ real fast, I’ll punch him again. ‘My team.’ He’s got to realize he’s got to control everybody. Whether Romo would have came back or not, it’s about the confidence and believing that he was the man. That he was driving the bus. Then, that confidence will spill over and it did.”
With Romo retired and now at CBS, it’s no question that it’s Prescott’s show in Dallas. Haley says the Cowboys players now see the MSU alumnus as their leader.
“When you listen to players talk they talk big about Dak, because he’s a man of character and a man of strength and a man of conviction.”
[H/T Pro Football Talk]
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaign of Fred Taylor.
