Quinnessential Question: Is Brady Quinn's Accuracy a Myth?

Is Brady Quinn's accuracy as well as his arm strength, or lack thereof, real question marks?

Here is Michael Lombardi's (former Brown's personnel man) assessmement of Brady Quinn:

"Quinn played in three games last season and was 45 of 89 passing, a 50.6-percent completion percentage. Those stats include his game against a very bad Broncos defense in which he was 23 of 35. If you remove that game, Quinn was 22 of 54 in the other games, less than 50-percent completion. Accuracy is something that’s hard to fix. NFL accuracy is putting the ball into tight spots and making sure the ball is thrown in the right zone so the receiver can make yards after the catch. This isn’t easy for Quinn. One of the reasons he was drafted late in the first round was because in every area of his play, he wasn’t accurate — in game tape, in practice and in his workout on campus at Notre Dame. In that workout, his ball was all over the place and he made his wideouts work for the catch while throwing against air. His deep ball was very poor, and this lack of accuracy was the main reason so many teams passed on him in the first round."

If you've followed closely, Quinn's loyal supporters also built in an excuse for ND losing all of those big games. The excuse is that ND didn't have the talent to compete. That's right, when his team needed him most, Quinn turned into a choke artist...BUT QUINN fans blamed the rest of the team for his feeble play. I guess Oregon States vaunted defense really gave Quinn fits! DA beat him then, and he's been beating him ever since.

Now for a pure dink dunker, Brady Quinn is amassing a completion percentage of no better than DA's stats. And that is a big worry: Quinn cannot make the big play but now he can't control the ball either !

Is it a wonder why DA is still in this so-called QB competition despite ALL the favours going Quinn's way: Quinn's draft cost and first rounder status vs DA's practice squad stigma, Quinn's metrosexual appeal vs DA's countryboy roots etc.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/
209985-quinnessential-question-is-b
rady-quinns-accuracy-a-myth

• Several NFL teams in need of a quarterback wouldn't have passed on him in 2007.
• He would have beaten Derek Anderson in 2007 AND 2008.
• His decision making would have been better in the few NFL games he started.

Pee Pee,

Lombardi wasn't a part of the Browns when they were evaluating Quinn....

It's Funny, here is how Walters Football saw Quinn's pro day. I have found them to be non-biased and accurate most of the time as scouts of the NFL draft hopefuls..


"Brady Quinn QB 6-3 232 4.73/40 yard. Actually a tenth faster in his 40 than JaMarcus Russell, which seems a bit odd. Notched a 36-inch vertical and a 9-foot-7 broad jump. Ran the short shuttle in 4.22 and the 3-cone drill in 6.79. Looked great in all the drills. Should be back in the top 5, if not the top 3."


Out of the 60 something passes thrown in 15 minutes, only 5 hit the ground. This shows not only accuracy, but stamina to throw that many balls in such a short amount of time.

I know you have made this argument before, but except for the Browns and the Dolphins, who else was going to be taking a QB on that day in 2007? Who are all of these teams that passed up on Quinn? The fact was, if the Dolphins didn't take him, he was going to fall fast and hard. That is exactly what happened and I still think he will prove his worth.

Lombardi wasn't a part of the Browns when they were evaluating Quinn....

It's Funny, here is how Walters Football saw Quinn's pro day. I have found them to be non-biased and accurate most of the time as scouts of the NFL draft hopefuls..


"Brady Quinn QB 6-3 232 4.73/40 yard. Actually a tenth faster in his 40 than JaMarcus Russell , which seems a bit odd. Notched a 36-inch vertical and a 9-foot-7 broad jump. Ran the short shuttle in 4.22 and the 3-cone drill in 6.79. Looked great in all the drills. Should be back in the top 5, if not the top 3."


Out of the 60 something passes thrown in 15 minutes, only 5 hit the ground. This shows not only accuracy, but stamina to throw that many balls in such a short amount of time.

I know you have made this argument before, but except for the Browns and the Dolphins , who else was going to be taking a QB on that day in 2007? Who are all of these teams that passed up on Quinn? The fact was, if the Dolphins didn't take him, he was going to fall fast and hard. That is exactly what happened and I still think he will prove his worth.

Surely the Quinn lovers (the ones with him as their avatar) will post here defending him

Quinn-lover, am I?  Well as least I'm not a filthy Steelers fan!! 

(And bfs, I do hope you get the humor here.  I am well aware you're not of the yellow and gold persuasion... )

but we really won't know till he gets a long stretch of games. Yeah, I realize the stats from the 3 games he played, but I'm curious at to how many of those where batted down, dropped and over or under thrown. We'll just have to wait and see if our investment from 2007 will pay off or not.....

I whole-heartedly agree with everything you just put, bfs.  In fact, I got more and more nervous as the mini camp battle wore on.  I'm obviously pulling for Quinn (see avatar), but if he's unable to out-shine one of the unarguably worst quarterbacks of 2008, then we (the Browns organization) have a serious problem on our hands!

The argument that Lombardi is (trying to) make in this article is completely without merit.  It's impossible to judge a quarterback off of three games.  Additionally, consider that Quinn was making his first start and they were on back-to-back national prime time games.

Then, if you futher buy into the bogus argument that Quinn's numbers are bad, consider this:

Quinn's numbers against Buffalo weren't overly impressive, but the Bills were #13-ranked pass defense in 2008.  He was 14 of 36 (38.9 percent) for 185 yards (5.1 average) with no touchdowns to no interceptions.

Anderson's numbers against the Texans were worse: 5 of 14 (35.7 percent) for 51 yards (3.6 average) and zero touchdowns to one interception.  Houston had the #17-ranked pass defense.

Against Washington, Anderson was 14 of 37 (37.8 percent) for 136 yards (3.7 average) with one touchdown and no interceptions.  The Redskins were #7-ranked pass defense.

Against Jacksonville, Anderson was 14 of 27 (51.9 percent) for 246 yards (9.1 average) and one touchdown... and Jacksonville was the #24-ranked pass defense!

Quinn may have some accuracy concerns (which actually were the only concerns on him coming out of college) but Anderson has proven time and time again to be much, much worse when it comes to quarterback accuracy.

Uh, chazz, why are all of your assessments based on the 2009 draft?  Quinn was drafted in 2007 and those teams were in very different situations then.  For example, the Falcons were pretty content with Michael Vick as their QB when the draft came in 2007 (a few weeks later...eh, not so much).  I don't know what Mark Sanchez has to do with this.

As far as the original post goes, I agree with those who say three games -- particularly the first three games as a starter -- is not the best sample size.

Here are three consecutive games played by another NFL QB in 2008:

17 for 28, 60.7% completion

13 for 29, 44.8% completion

5 for 17, 29.4% completion  (Three-game total of 35 for 74, 47.3% completion -- worse than Brady Quinn's)

Any guesses as to who this QB might be?  Hint:  He is the most awesome human being alive.  Oh, and he won the Super Bowl that year too.