It cannot surprise anyone that a large proportion of the posters on this forum believed the Brady Quinn hype. Last year many of these same poor sods were arguing that Reggie Bush was a "once in a lifetime" talent, and this year some of them were referring to Adrian Peterson in superlatives reserved for the Buddha, Jesus Christ and Gandhi. If Cam Cameron, who has coached up some elite quarterbacks in his career--Trent Green, Drew Brees, and Phillip Rivers, got a journeyman quarterback like Gus Frerotte to the Pro Bowl, and turned a glorified wide receiver into one of the best quarterbacks in the NCAA, Antawn Randle El, passes on Brady Quinn, when Randy Mueller who has had some good success in acquiring quarterbacks in his time as general manager passes on Brady Quinn, and when they both do so when the freaking quarterback coach, Terry Shea worked extensively with Quinn to prep him for the draft, you know something is amiss. Gary Kubiak, another guy that knows something about quarterbacks decided before the draft he'd rather overpay a career backup with hardly any playing experience, and waste a couple of high draft picks for Matt Schaub, rather then make a play for Quinn in the draft. Why? The Browns who desperately needed a quarterback passed on the guy at three, even though Romeo Crennel is tight with Charlie Weiss. The fact they got him at 22 is pure luck. The Lions, with no quarterback of merit on the roster passed on Quinn with quarterback guru Mike Martz having input, what does this tell you? He wasn't as highly regarded as many thought. He's Aaron Rogers.
The Dolphins determined that John Beck was superior value at 40 to Brady Quinn at 9. Two other things stand out about Quinn, the most quantifiable is his accuracy, or lack thereof. Even when he completes a lot of his passes, it's because his receivers, who physically overmatched most of the competition Notre Dame lined up against, were always making plays on the ball despite how poorly thrown many of the passes were. John Beck on the other hand is a highly accurate passer, especially in the short to medium range game (remind anyone of Marc Bulger, or Drew Brees?) Secondly, Beck is more mature then Quinn, who at times comes off like a putz. Now to those who say that Quinn just does it on the field, what exactly has he done? He's not won any big game he's been in, he's had some rather dreadful performances in those games. At least for a guy like Vince Young, or Matt Leinart, or Jay Cutler, you could say they were winners, even Cutler beat teams Vanderbilt wasn't supposed to beat. Not so with Quinn. And this despite his being coached up by Charlie Weiss. No other quarterback in the draft had the coaching pedigree at his disposal Quinn had. How much better can Quinn be? Is he likely to get much better tutelage in the NFL then he did from Weiss? I doubt it. I never did understand the enthusiasm for Quinn to be honest. Whether Beck was the correct pick, or not, it's not clear Quinn should have been.
