In signing with the Chiefs, quarterback Brady Quinn apparently didn’t take the best financial offer he could find. Instead, he went with the best fit. (Peyton Manning would have said, “Get both.”)
Quinn will now be reunited with coach Romeo Crennel and new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, both of whom worked with Quinn in Cleveland. It actually gives Quinn a bit of an edge over incumbent starter Matt Cassel.
“You can’t make every decision in life based on money,” Quinn told the Kansas City Star, via NFL.com. “For me, personally, I had to make the best decision I felt like for me. And Kansas City was the right choice.”
Quinn would have been wise to take that advice five years ago, after he was drafted by the Browns following a gum-chewing, tie-askewing free-fall in round one. Quinn held out of training camp in order to obtain guarantees that he’d be paid like he’d been drafted much higher than the 20s, if/when he became the starter. But the holdout put him behind Derek Anderson, who played after the one-and-done Charlie Frye experiment in 2007 with the calm of a guy who knew he was eventually going to be benched.
As a result, Anderson played well, the Browns failed to realize why Anderson played well, and then in 2008 when Anderson was the No. 1 guy and Quinn was No. 2, Anderson looked over his shoulder just enough to not play as well as he needed to play.
Quinn didn’t either, once he got an opportunity, and the Browns gave up on him, trading him to Denver for new teammate Peyton Hillis, among other things.
In the end, Quinn never unlocked the starter money he held out to get. And so, by losing millions, he has learned an extremely valuable lesson.