Brady Quinn Deserves Better from the NFL

Earlier this week, the Denver Broncos announced that Tim Tebow will take over at quarterback in two weeks when they play the Miami Dolphins.

It is a move that is really unfair in a sense. I understand that a 1-4 team with a veteran quarterback whose contract expires might want to put in a young guy. That is business, and that is how the NFL works. That is understandable.

The problem I have with the whole thing is that in the preseason, the Broncos had a competition for the backup quarterback spot between Tebow and Brady Quinn. Quinn consistently outperformed him in both practices and games. Therefore, if it has to be that Kyle Orton has to come out, shouldn't it be Quinn who gets the chance first?

The bottom line is that, as fans and writers, we can speculate all we want about how good Tebow and Quinn will or won't be, but we won't know for sure until they both get a chance to play. However, the first chance should go to the guy who had the better preseason. That was Quinn.

If Quinn were to go in for three games and struggle, then OK. Then it would make sense to bring Tebow in.

There are those who say that Quinn already had his chance in Cleveland.

Tell me if this sounds like a fair chance to you: You get drafted by an organization. In your rookie year, Derek Anderson has possibly one of the biggest fluke years of all time. So you get stuck on the bench. Then, you don't get a chance until midway through your second year. You play well for two games before you break your hand.

The team continues to lose, and the coach and GM who drafted you are now gone. In comes Eric Mangini, who has proven to be completely clueless when it comes to quarterbacks. He couldn't decide who was better between Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens. The Jets settled that problem for him by bringing in Brett Favre. Pennington then made him look foolish in Miami.

So now, he has Quinn and Anderson and is once again completely clueless. He can't commit to one of them and trade the other. He was afraid of the other guy going elsewhere and making him look foolish again. So he makes them split reps with the starters, which allowed neither to develop any kind of chemistry with them.

So Quinn outperforms Anderson in the preseason and gets the job. That is, only to get benched two and a half games in after playing with an offense that was completely outmatched by the defense. Anderson comes in and is even worse.

Quinn does come in later in the year and starts to make progress before a foot injury ends his season. Then in comes Mike Holmgren, who cleans house, and Quinn gets traded to Denver with the idea of being the guy to take over for Orton eventually. That is, until Tebow was drafted and Quinn was suddenly the forgotten man.

Does that sound like a fair chance to you?

I do understand that Quinn could still get a chance this year depending on how well Tebow does. Still, the principle of the matter should be that the guy who performed better in the preseason gets the first chance.

The NFL is a business, and going to Tebow really has more to do with business than it does football. I understand that too. Still, Brady Quinn deserves better from the NFL.