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Monday, October 28, 1996

Charles Haley calls Jimmy Johnson a coward

By Michael Mayo / Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (Oct. 28, 1996)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (KRT) - Some Cowboys had mixed emotions about facing former coach Jimmy Johnson, who led the team to consecutive Super Bowl wins.

Defensive end Charles Haley wasn't one of them. Haley, who clashed with Johnson during their two seasons together, spilled bile after Dallas' 29-10 win, calling Johnson "a coward" and predicting the new Dolphins' coach was "going to flop here, because guys are not going to listen to his bull&emdash;&emdash; that he tries to bring down."

Haley, 32, had a contentious relationship with Johnson after being traded from San Francisco in 1992. Time apparently hasn't healed the wounds.

"This was an emotional game," Haley said. "It's personal between me and him. I wanted to score as many points as we possibly could...He thinks he's the only coach who can coach football in this league."

Haley, an 11-year veteran who has won five Super Bowls, was ridden hard by Johnson during his time in Dallas. Johnson often questioned Haley's effort, even though Haley played through chronic lower-back pain that required surgery in 1994.

"He's not going to be able to treat players like he did when I came to Dallas, just treat them any kind of way," Haley said. "To me he's a coward anyway, because if he's got something say about a brother, tell him to say it to his face, instead of going to some book writer and saying it, so that it ends up in a book. He should say it to a guy's face."

Haley said the team was tentative in the first half "because everybody was so worried about beating Jimmy, we forgot about beating the guys in front of us. We had to be physical. That's what we stressed at halftime. We had to go out there and beat the guys in front of us."

The root of Haley's clash with Johnson goes back to a late-season game at Denver in 1992. Johnson questioned Haley's effort in front of the team at halftime. Haley, a moody and intimidating player, responded with three sacks in the second half and the Cowboys went on to win.

In a book about that season written by Skip Bayless, Johnson trumpeted the confrontation as a pivotal moment, saying nobody else would have dared to take on Haley.

According to Bayless, Haley and Johnson had "a Cold War" the following season. Haley threatened to walk out of one meeting when Johnson got on him, but Johnson told him if he did, he wouldn't play for the Cowboys again. Haley sat down.

After the Cowboys won a second straight Super Bowl in 1993, Johnson began shopping Haley. According to Bayless, Haley would have been traded had Johnson remained with the team. Instead, Johnson and Jerry Jones parted acromoniously a few weeks later.

(c) 1996, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.