Charlie Weis has bounced around in recent years, from Notre Dame to the Kansas City Chiefs, and then from Florida to Kansas. The longtime coach has worked with an impressive line of quarterbacks, but he can't stop talking about one in particular.
Brady.
Not that Brady -- Brady Quinn.
"Brady could have been a starting quarterback for me in the NFL," Weis told The Kansas City Star this week.
Quinn threw for more than 7,300 yards and 69 touchdowns in his final two seasons under Weis at Notre Dame. His production in the NFL shrunk to 1,902 yards and 10 scores in five seasons. Over the past two, he hasn't registered a statistic.
"Go back and look at those numbers for the two years he played for me. He was great. He wasn't good. And I know if I had him as a quarterback, I would have felt very comfortable that I could have won no matter where we were."
Weis remains close to Romeo Crennel, who drafted Quinn as head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 2007 before signing him to the Chiefs' roster this offseason. It's not a glowing compliment of Crennel's early work with Quinn, but the quarterback barely saw the field with the Browns before Romeo was fired after the 2008 season.
Quinn started nine games for a Cleveland team in 2009 that resembled something out of the 1930s, barely throwing the ball. (Case in point: in their first win of the 2009, a 6-3 snoozer against the Buffalo Bills, Derek Anderson completed two passes for 23 yards -- ALL GAME.) Quinn was traded to the Denver Broncos the following season for Peyton Hillis and became a ghost lost in the fury of Tim Tebow's starting run with the team.
Quinn hasn't completed a pass in two seasons. Weis believes he could have done more with this player's career. He's probably not alone.