22 reasons for Quinn to end holdout
Posted: Friday, August 03, 2007 5:45 PM
I have for years taken pride in saying that Notre Dame doesn’t admit dummies. That’s self-serving coming from a Domer, but I’ve always believed it to be true.
But Brady Quinn is destroying that little truism.
The quarterback who led Notre Dame to zero bowl victories – he did set a bunch of passing records, though – and went from Heisman Trophy candidate to the 22nd player taken in the NFL draft, was going to show the world this year that he’s better than the personnel directors thought he was.
He’d be in Browns’ camp doing that right at this very moment, except for one minor problem: he won’t sign a contract.
Quinn’s reasoning makes less sense than a syllogism I found carved on a Notre Dame desk top lo, those many years ago:
Nothing is better than God.
Warm beer is better than nothing.
Therefore, warm beer is better than God
He thinks he should have been drafted in the top five picks, so he wants to be paid according to where he thinks he should have been drafted rather than by where he did get picked.
By that logic, if you think you should be the company CEO instead of a mail-room clerk, you should demand a CEO’s salary. If you don’t get it, you should boycott work.
It’s particularly dumb because Quinn was drafted by the Browns, a team that has clear starter at quarterback. It does, however, have two other candidates – Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson. Had Quinn signed for whatever is the going rate for 22nd picks, he’d be in camp staking his claim to the starting position. Instead, he’s staying at home, working his way down the depth chart and into a great job as a clipboard holder.
Cleveland fans were happy when their team traded with Dallas to get the 22nd pick and rescue Brady from the draft’s green room, where the cameras kept showing him trying to act as if he wasn’t disappointed to see his stock falling faster than Congress’ approval ratings.
Now they’re just ticked. Cleveland is rightly described as a blue-collar, lunch-bucket city, and people who work their backsides of at grueling jobs just to get enough money together to dress up like dogs and cheer the local football team have no patience with greedy, hold-out jerks.
Something called “The Sideline Show” discovered that during his holdout, Quinn was signing autographs – the show claims he was charging for them – at Cleveland-area mall. With more passion than grammar, the site says: “The Chosen one or the dumb one now let me get this right reports are saying that Brady Quinn has an autograph session in Cleveland Ohio at a mall. Quinn was charging the Cleveland Browns fans money to sign autograph jerseys.”
With considerably more eloquence, Terry Pluto, an excellent columnist for many years at The Akron Beacon-Journal, wrote an open letter to Quinn, telling him to quit being a knucklehead and start proving he’s as great as he thinks he is. An excerpt: “Do you realize that your holdout makes it seem like you have an overblown sense of entitlement? That you not only are hurting yourself by holding out, but also not helping the team that saved you from even a bigger free-fall in the NFL Draft?
“Brady, the Browns picked you at No. 22.”
Quinn apparently is also hurting the Kansas City Chiefs, who, writes Fanhouse’s Michael David Smith, can’t sign the 23rd pick in the draft, wide-out Dwayne Bowe, who is waiting to see what Quinn gets before deciding on his own contact.
Way to go, Brady. You’re embarrassing your school, sucker-punching your own career, ticking off all of Northeast Ohio and keeping K.C. from getting all its players on board.
All because Quinn can’t count to 22.
