Brady Quinn might not be a great NFL quarterback. But he’s not stupid.
He’d like to be traded, but he’s not going to ask for a trade -- especially since he was born and raised only 100 miles and some change from Cleveland.
So he instead put his house up for sale, and then he has pretended that it wasn’t aimed at sending a message or, at a minimum, getting his name into the conversation regarding possible pre-deadline trade bait.
“I’m a guy who doesn’t want to drive 30 minutes to the facility every day, I’m a bachelor, I live in a house that’s too much upkeep for me,’' Quinn said Wednesday, coming to a realization that should have been obvious when he bought the house more than two years ago. ''It’s a private issue.’'
And then Quinn played dumb regarding the fact that people might have interpreted the decision of a quarterback who has been benched to put his house up for sale as an indication that the benched quarterback might want out.
''I don’t know where that came from. I have not asked to be traded,’' Quinn said. ''That’s not my nature to do something like that. I’ve got a contract here with the Browns and I intend to play that out.’'
So he’s a team player. He’s a good guy. He’s doing it the right way.
But he still wants out.
If he were a true team player, he would have been sensitive to the impression that putting his house up for sale two weeks after losing the starting job would have created.
As a league source put it more concisely, “This is Quinn’s way of being a bitch.”
Whether he gets his way remains to be seen. If he doesn’t, he’ll continue to act like he never wanted to leave.
Regardless of whether he does.