Browns Trade Away Hometown Boy, Brady Quinn

Just wondered what all of the thoughts were on this move by the Browns? I personally like it a lot. It gives the Browns a fresh start without any qb controversy and they are obviously trying to load up on draft picks. Any thoughts??????
Browns trade QB Brady Quinn to Broncos
www.yahoosports.com
Brady Quinn(notes) will get a chance to start over in Denver. Whether he’ll get to start is up in the air.
The Broncos acquired the former first-round draft pick from the Cleveland Browns for fullback Peyton Hillis(notes), a 2011 sixth-round draft pick and a conditional pick in 2012.
The teams announced the trade Sunday and said the deal is pending physicals.
Ostensibly, Quinn will compete with Kyle Orton(notes) for the Broncos’ starting job, although coach Josh McDaniels was unavailable Sunday to comment on the trade, according to a team spokesman.
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Quinn’s departure comes one day after the Browns agreed to terms with free agent Jake Delhomme(notes) on a two-year contract. Quinn went 3-9 in 12 starts for Cleveland, which drafted him with the 22nd pick in the first round in 2007 out of Notre Dame.
From Dublin, Ohio, he was embraced by Browns fans as the quarterback of the future. But it never panned out for the Browns or Quinn.
“I appreciate everything Brady did for us last year and in his three seasons with the Cleveland Browns,” coach Eric Mangini said in a statement. “He is professional in the way he goes about doing his job and worked extremely hard at every aspect of his game. I wish him the best of success in Denver.”
Quinn won Cleveland’s starting job last season, but was benched after 2 1/2 games for Derek Anderson(notes). Quinn eventually got his job back when Anderson struggled but he was hindered by inaccuracy.
He completed only 53 percent of his passes last season for 1,339 yards with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions. His rating was 67.3.
Quinn’s days in Cleveland appeared numbered when new president Mike Holmgren failed to endorse him as the Browns’ future starter. Last week, the Browns acquired backup Seneca Wallace(notes) in a trade with Seattle, released Anderson and hosted Delhomme, recently cut by Carolina.
Holmgren’s house cleaning continued Sunday, when he shipped another former first-round draft pick, linebacker Kamerion Wimbley(notes), to the Oakland Raiders for draft picks.
The Broncos reportedly pursued Quinn last season when they were trying to replace Jay Cutler(notes).
Instead, they dealt Cutler to Chicago for a bevy of draft picks and Orton, who beat out Chris Simms(notes) for the starting job in June.
The Broncos have insisted they’re happy with Orton, a workmanlike leader who wasn’t allowed to throw downfield much last season, when he led the Broncos to a 6-2 start before a 2-6 finish kept them out of the playoffs for a fourth straight season.
That’s the longest drought in the 26 years Pat Bowlen has owned the team. Bowlen recently said he likes Orton as his quarterback but would like to see the Broncos draft a passer next month.
Those plans may now be on hold.
The Broncos lost confidence in Simms last season, so it would appear he’s out of the picture with the acquisition of Quinn.
Last week, the Broncos offered Orton, a restricted free agent, a first-round tender offer that would pay him $2.261 million this season.
Like hundreds of other players caught up in the league’s labor issues, however, Orton is expected to boycott his team’s start of offseason training, which starts Monday for the Broncos.
With the league ripping up the labor deal in hopes of getting a more owner-friendly contract, dozens of players who were set to reach the riches of unrestricted free agency this month are instead bound by their teams, which are offering much less than the players could have made in an unfettered marketplace.
Hillis will also be getting a fresh start.
He went from starting tailback under coach Mike Shanahan in 2008 to forgotten fullback under McDaniels, who adamantly refused to use him even though rookie running back Knowshon Moreno(notes) frequently came up short in short-yardage situations.
McDaniels insisted that the problems were on the line and not in the backfield and that he’d rather give the ball to his top draft pick. With Spencer Larsen(notes) banged up for much of the season, McDaniels said his hands were often tied because he didn’t want to risk running Hillis, who was often his only available fullback.
Hillis had just 13 carries for 53 yards last season. He was inactive for two games, once to attend his grandmother’s funeral in November. He also returned four kicks.
The 240-pound bone-rattler energized the Broncos in 2008 when he emerged during an injury epidemic among the team’s tailbacks and ran for a team-high 343 yards and scored six touchdowns before tearing his right hamstring against Kansas City in December.
The Browns seemed to have found their No. 1 tailback late last season in Jerome Harrison(notes), who finished with a team-high 862 yards rushing. But veteran Jamal Lewis(notes), second on the team in rushing, was released last month, which could provide an opening for Hillis to be the power complement to the small and quick Harrison.
So Hillis gets another chance in Cleveland while Quinn tries to jump-start his career in Denver.

Calm, cool and collected, Quinn will be a winner

Calm, cool and collected, Quinn will be a winner
from www.msnbc.com
Brady Quinn’s career began on the night his team’s season ended. And all a Browns fan can ask after watching Quinn play with veteran aplomb is, "Why wasn’t this kid in there weeks ago?"
Nobody in Cleveland has any delusions that the Browns would be battling Pittsburgh and Baltimore for the AFC North lead if Quinn had been playing all along instead of Derek Anderson. The team has too many problems for one player to solve. A lot of them are on the other side of the ball with a defense that can’t put pressure on the quarterback and has a remarkable knack for fourth-quarter collapses.
The problems have to be traced back to the general manager and the coaching staff who should be expected to field a team that can pressure a quarterback and make big tackles. It’s also a coaching staff that kept playing an underperforming Anderson instead of switching to Quinn a month ago, when he may have made a difference.
Quinn isn’t Joe Montana or Joe Theisman yet. He’ll take his lumps, especially when he plays against a varsity defense instead of the porous Denver unit he picked apart Thursday night.
But he showed he has what it takes to play in this league. It wasn’t so much in the statistics, which were impressive enough: 23-for-35 for 239 yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions and zero sacks. It was more the way he approached the job.
He had one full day of practice for this game, and until Thursday, his NFL career consisted of three completions in eight pass attempts in one relief effort last year against San Francisco. But from the moment he was introduced to a crowd that has been begging coach Romeo Crennel to start him, Quinn looked and acted like a veteran.
He didn’t charge out of the tunnel when his name was called with adrenaline squirting out of his ears and his eyes wide with excitement. Instead, he took several purposeful strides onto the field, looked up to scan the crowd and offer the fans a wave, then trotted onto the field as if he’d been doing it all his life.
He missed his first pass, completed his second and was three-and-out on his first series. But on his second possession, he drove his team to a score. His first NFL touchdown pass was a beauty. It was third-and-goal from the 5, and with a defender about to crush him, he leaped in the air and drilled a bullet between two defenders into tight end Kellen Winslow’s arms.
It was the kind throw coaches don’t want their quarterbacks to make. He was in the air and he threw into double coverage. Most quarterbacks try that and they get picked because they can’t put enough on the throw.
He didn’t go nuts when Winslow hauled it in. And he didn’t go nuts when he threw his second touchdown pass on the next possession, again hitting Winslow, who broke two tackles and ran it in.
Quinn didn’t get confused on his play calls and didn’t have a single delay-of-game penalty. He didn’t fumble. He stepped away from the rush time and again and hit outlet receivers when he was in trouble. He was cool. He had presence.
Even after the Browns had coughed up their 13-point lead, giving up seven on a 93-yard Jay Cutler completion over blown coverage, Quinn brought his team back to take the lead again with just a few minutes left.
Cleveland’s defense had played well in the first half, but collapsed in the second. They gave up the lead for the final time with just over a minute left. Quinn said later it was plenty of time.
On fourth-and-1 at his own 42, Quinn threw a perfect pass to Winslow that would have kept the drive alive. And it went right through Winslow’s hands.
The tight end had a great game with 10 catches and two touchdowns, but he had a miserable second half. Earlier he had fumbled the ball away and negated a critical first-down pickup by committing a flagrant and senseless offensive pass interference penalty. Afterward, he took the blame for the loss.
“It was a routine catch,” Winslow said. “I let my team down."
That was in the locker room. In the interview room, Quinn, the guy who threw the pass that Winslow neglected to catch, refused to blame anyone.
“This is on me,” he told the media. “This loss is on me.”
That’s not the truth, but it’s what you want to hear. Quinn started his first game for the franchise he grew up cheering. He put 30 points on the board. And he did that without being asked to throw a single deep ball.
Cleveland didn’t win the game, but they got a quarterback for the future. Now all they need is a team — and coaching — as good as he is.