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In Contract Negotiations, It’s Sanchez 1, Quinn 0
Published: June 12, 2009
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Kudos to Mark Sanchez for not attempting to exploit the Jets for the effort they made to go get him at No. 5 in the 2009 NFL Draft. Sanchez and his agent could have easily said, “You must really want me if you traded your first round pick, your second round pick, and three good players to move up to get me. Now pay up.”
Sanchez could have made it nasty by holding out for his ransom. Instead, Sanchez signed quickly, and apparently easily, to a win-win four-year deal.
By signing early, Sanchez can remain in camp, learning, developing, and competing for the starting QB job with Kellen Clemons without the distraction of contract negotiations.
Rookie QBs, especially those that come out a year early, need every minute and every snap of their first offseason to even have a chance to start. Sanchez recognized the opportunity he had been given and acted accordingly. It was a smart move by a young QB who is getting good advice.
Now, rewind to the summer of 2007. Brady Quinn was a rookie QB for the Browns then, who had also seen his team jump through hoops to draft him, in a different way but at a similar high cost.
At that time, Quinn was facing an opportunity that was nearly as golden as the one Sanchez has now. Quinn was facing a QB competition against a couple of guys in Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson who stumbled and bumbled through the ’07 preseason like two guys playing hot potato with the football.
Both were choking away their chance at the starting job. You could see it on Romeo Crennel’s face that he was in a panic over the lack of production his two veteran QBs were exhibiting.
But Brady Quinn and his agent, Tom Condon, made a strange decision that July. They decided to hold out…right in the middle of camp when Quinn was progressing nicely toward being included in the QB competition.
The holdout ended any possibility of Quinn getting any consideration. He missed several key practices and vital time with his offensive coaches at the worst possible time.
The result?
Brady Quinn settled for an extra $250,000 of guaranteed money in his deal, a deal that was heavily incentive-based, and is still paying him very little by NFL standards for first round QBs. Then he sat the bench for a season and a half.
At the time, Peter King of CNN/SI wrote that Quinn’s holdout was “one of the dumbest holdouts in NFL history.” I agreed then, and it has proven true.
If Quinn had not held out, he would have had a chance to be deemed ready for the starting job by Game One. Even if Frye had gotten Romeo’s nod to start Game One, Charlie’s subsequent implosion in that game against the rival Steelers would have set the table for the bright young star to take the field in relief in front of a shell-shocked and depressed home town crowd.
Even if Quinn went in and performed poorly, as Derek Anderson did, the No. 10 jersey clad crowd would have been solidly behind their promising young rookie, and Quinn’s career as the Brown’s starting QB would have been launched.
Just imagine the money that Brady Quinn, with his marketable mug, would have made in endorsements if he’d been the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns for the last season and a half instead of a bench-warmer.
Ironically, holding out for a little extra guaranteed money might well have cost Quinn millions upon millions of dollars. Heck, this kid gets some ads even as a backup. His holdout might have cost himself $100 million.
“No chance that Romeo would have gone with Quinn” you say? Think again.
Anderson folded like a cheap tent in the ’07 preseason. At the time Frye fizzled, Crennell had no other option but Anderson because Quinn’s holdout had rendered him a non-factor, especially to an old school coach from the Bill Belichick coaching tree where holdouts are punished.
Quinn should have asked Braylon Edwards if Crennell was the type to punish holdouts. Edwards didn’t start for Crennell his first game in 2005 because of his holdout.
Had Quinn not held out and not missed all that critical time in camp, Crennell might well have viewed him as a savior, especially the way the two other clowns were playing.
Playing behind that great O-line with all that talent, it’s conceivable that Quinn would have performed similarly to the way Derek Anderson did in ’07.
NO ONE expected Anderson to play the way he did early in ’07, least of all Romeo Crennell who’d just watched him lose the job to Frye.
Had Quinn been ready, I think Crennell would have handed him the reigns in relief of Frye, that sunny yet dismal September day in 2005.
