Dan Marino: Tom Brady One Of Best QBs Ever; Deflategate Won’t Change That

Tom Brady has the endorsement of one of the best quarterbacks of all time.

Miami Dolphins legend Dan Marino joined WEEI’s “Middays with MFB” on Tuesday to discuss Deflategate, and he stuck up for Brady. Marino said the New England Patriots quarterback being implicated as the reason the team’s footballs were underinflated in the 2014 AFC Championship Game should have no effect on his legacy.

“I’m a big fan of Tom Brady, always have been,” Marino said. “I’ve known him for a lot of years. My perception of him is he’s one of the greatest players at that position to ever play. That is not going to change.”

Marino also said that as a quarterback, he had a lot more important things to worry about than air pressure. But perhaps more interestingly, in Marino’s day — he retired after the 1999 season — he never even realized that the NFL was checking footballs before games.

“On Fridays you go through the week, you practice, you pick out what (footballs) you like,” Marino told WEEI. “For me, I never even thought about that they actually checked the footballs before games, but you put them in the bag and you send them to the stadium. That’s how I always dealt with it.

“The other thing that is different now than it was when I was playing was if you (went) on the road you actually had to rely on the other quarterback to not fix the balls the way he does and kind of trust that you have to throw the balls on the road that quarterback and that home team team likes. It’s a situation that I think I didn’t even realize they were checking balls before games.”

Click to see other QBs’ takes on Deflategate >>

Thumbnail photo via Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images