Brady Quinn was just too darn muscular for Jon Gruden to draft him
Ex-Bucs coach told Quinn he didn't look like a guy 'to go out and have a beer with'
By
Will Brinson
•
1 min read
Quarterback evaluation is the most inexact science going in sports. Different people prefer different attributes and apparently Jon Gruden isn't a fan of buff quarterbacks.
According to former NFL quarterback (and friend of the program) Brady Quinn, who appeared on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday, Gruden, then coach of the Buccaneers, told Quinn he was too daggum ripped when he came out of the draft.
"We're sitting in Charlie Weis' office and we're going through and he put up a picture of me from the combine. And obviously my dad was a Marine. He had me working out at a young age," Quinn recalled. "I was eating Total and Product 19 by the time I was 4. So I liked to work out, and I worked hard. So I think it was part genetics and part that I ate a pretty decent diet. So I tend to look a little bit muscle-bound in my photo and he's kind of looking at me going, 'What are you doing here man?' Trying to get a little more on your traps, a little more on your biceps, I don't want my quarterbacks to look like this.
"And then he flipped to a picture of Jamarcus Russell from the combine. And he said 'I don't want you to look like this either.'"
So who did Gruden, now an ESPN analyst for Monday Night Football, want Quinn to look like? Charlie Freakin' Frye.
"Ironically enough, he flipped to a picture of Charlie Frye, who at the time was a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns," Quinn told Patrick. "And [Gruden] said 'This is what a quarterback is supposed to look like. You know, a guy you see every day, you'd like to go out and have a beer with. You need to look more like this guy.'"
The irony? Frye was on the Browns right up until Cleveland drafted Quinn No. 22 overall. They promptly shipped Frye out of town two weeks into the season.
The basis of Gruden's theory behind wanting a less ripped quarterback, Quinn surmised, was because Gruden ran a West Coast offense, which less about being a MAN and STRONG and more about being accurate. And someone you want to drink beer with, or something.
