Why I Believe In Brady Quinn

I have been told that I have a man crush on Brady Quinn. There is some truth to that. I like this kid and I like him a lot.

About six years ago I was watching a Notre Dame game. I never miss one no matter what.

Second year coach Tyrone Willingham was trying to implement a west coast offense at Notre Dame. His quarterback, Carlyle Holiday, was not built for a west coast offense and was really struggling. This young freshman enters.

At first, I thought oh great another pretty boy quarterback. Then he engineers a scoring drive. I think he may be okay. The rest of that day he struggled. He also struggled for the rest of that year.

Then his sophomore season comes and he really has an up and down year. He looked really good at times and not so good at others. He takes the team to the Insight Bowl. Willingham was fired.

Enter Charlie Weis. He implemented a whole new system which is similar but not the same. One of his first moves was recruiting a quarterback by the name of Evan Sharpley. He recruited him because he wasn't really that impressed with Quinn. To be honest, neither was I at that point.

Throughout the whole spring, Quinn never really enamoured Weis in any of the drills. It was the same story in summer training camp. Weis was going to start the year with Quinn because he wanted to bring Sharpley along slowly.

Enter Pittsburgh and Quinn just lights them up. He did the same against Michigan. Notre Dame had come out of nowhere to become a power in college football.

Weis later said that he had no idea his quarterback was this good. He felt that although he won't "wow" you in drills, get him in the game and he is in his element.

Then comes his senior season and Notre Dame is expected to contend for a national title. The pollsters must not have noticed that Anthony Fasano and Maurice Stovall had gone to the NFL.

All Quinn had left was Jeff Smardizjda. John Carlson was still developing. Other than that the talent was quite average. The defense was poor.

They start the year with a couple shaky wins and a disastrous loss to Michigan. It became apparent that the team was overrated.

Then the next week they get down big to Michigan State on the road in pouring rain. They could have mailed it in at that point. However, that was when Quinn took over the team and asserted his leadership. He engineered an unbelievable fourth quarter comeback.

The rest of the year, he and Smardizja carried that team to another BCS bowl. One game that stood out was UCLA where the team should not have won, but Quinn put together an unbelievable last minute drive. He hit Smardizja for huge TD that you would have to see to believe.

The whole time the media is hammering him and the team. Weis, however, now had the utmost faith in Quinn.

The hammering of Quinn continued at the combine. Quinn was never impressive in drills. Then he falls in the draft and the media has a field day.

Then comes the preseason and Quinn impresses on the field with three TD passes. The media give him no credit. Instead they say it was due to being in against the backups.

He doesn't play during the season and the critics come out again and say that the Browns future will not include Quinn. He gets in the last game and has two TDs dropped.

Then the offseason comes and the team re-signs Derrick Anderson and tells Quinn he will be the backup once again.

Quinn never complains, just goes out and has another good preseason. Then he plays for two games before breaking a finger. He tries to play on it but can't.

Now enter Mankok who are not enamoured with Quinn and say there will be an open competition. Heck, Quinn was almost traded for Cutler. Hasn't he been here before?

Throughout all of this, Quinn has never once complained or spoke bad of anybody. He is a team first guy. He has shown great resiliency and mental toughness. Jay Cutler should take note.

So yes I root for this kid. My question is; why don't you?

So to answer why I believe in him, if you watch him on and off the field, it becomes very easy to. If you think about it, this is a pretty easy kid to believe in.