He didn't work out at the Combine, he's coming off an injury, and his predicted draft position has gone up and down more than Roger Ebert's thumbs. But if you spend even a few minutes with Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn, one thing quickly becomes clear: he can sell.
I spent most of a day last week with Brady Quinn and Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson when they were in New York to promote Sprint's NFL Draft Day video content. While I was with him, Brady Quinn did a radio interview in which he talked glowingly about the provider's service and a specific phone, and even sounded disappointed that he's going to be speaking on a land line at the actual draft.
Brady Quinn told me he plans to use the service on Draft Day to see where Notre Dame teammates and other friends in the draft are headed. And here I thought it was invented just so that I can catch some of the draft while I'm waiting outside the department store fitting room rehearsing the way I'll compliment my wife's outfit when she comes out to ask my opinion.
Brady Quinn has so many of the qualities that sponsors look for that the endorsements he already has could soon be just the tip of an iceberg so big it could single-handedly disprove global warming.
He's got a pitch-perfect blend of humility and confidence, of innocence and experience. When he talks about the draft, he focuses not on draft position but on his excitement to simply know where he's headed. He knows about the responsibilities that come with the big payday and the expectations that will be heaped upon him by an entire city beginning with the moment he's drafted. And yet he also knows just how lucky he is to be in such a position. "It's ridiculous to think that you get to play a game you love for a job you get paid for," he said. It's enough to make you think that Irish coach Charlie Weis wasn't being biased when he told the Associated Press last week, "That 'it' that certain people have, well he has it."
Brady Quinn's looks aren't hurting him, either. When he walked into the restaurant where we ate lunch, I happened to be sitting next to the woman who teaches those kids from Newsday. "My daughter told me he's very good-looking," she said of Brady Quinn before getting up to take a closer look. "She was right."
With a newly minted finance degree under his belt, Brady Quinn certainly understands the business of sports. At one point I accidentally referred to Notre Dame as a franchise. When I quickly corrected myself and said "program," he laughed and said, "it is a franchise nowadays." With his growing list of endorsement deals, Brady Quinn is quickly turning into a franchise himself.
He blogs for XBox; he's done a photo shoot for Nike; he's got endorsement deals with Hummer and with EAS, a supplement manufacturer. The list is getting so long that he almost forgot to mention his new deal with Subway. So does this mean he'll be hanging out with that Jared guy? "Hopefully in the future," he laughed. "I'm not that big-time."
Not yet, anyway. But by the looks of things he could be there pretty soon. Brady Quinn hasn't even played a single down in the NFL and already he's got more endorsement deals than most pro players get in a lifetime. He's associated with so many products that he's starting to look more like Peyton Manning than Eli Manning does.
When talking with a bunch of reporters right before lunch, Brady Quinn was completely at ease, leaning back in his chair and looking so comfortable that he may as well have been in his bedroom shooting the breeze with his buddies. Despite having barely eaten all day, despite having given something like a dozen interviews already that morning, and despite knowing that lunch was waiting for him as soon as he finished the interviews, he was completely at ease and completely focused. He answered every question thoughtfully and sincerely as if he hadn't already heard and answered it several times that same day.
He handles the media so well that you hardly even notice you're being handled. Interview after interview, every question designed to get him to say something negative or controversial was sidestepped with the kind of ease that his new team can only hope he uses to avoid linebackers.
One example: he acknowledged that there's some truth to the reports that he'd love to play for his hometown Browns, but also made sure to say that, "I'd love to play for a lot of teams in the NFL. I think the biggest thing for me is playing in the NFL."
It doesn't matter that the draft is still more than a week away -- Brady Quinn is already a pro. From his Sprint handlers to the Newsday kids, everybody he spoke to all day got his full attention and enthusiasm as if he wanted nothing more than to talk to them. More than anything else, it's that air of accessibility that Brady Quinn gives off -- the sense that he's just a regular guy who happens to be good at throwing a football -- that makes him so marketable. When I asked him where he's partying after the draft, he told me to leave him my cell number so he could call me from the party to let me know. At lunch, he teased his agent for having gone to Maryland. And he seemed just as excited to meet those fifth-graders as they were to meet him.
To Brady Quinn, the media spotlight must seem no scarier than a candle. With a brother-in-law (A.J. Hawk) who plays for Green Bay and a cousin (Zachery Ty Bryan) who co-starred as the eldest son on sitcom Home Improvement, Brady Quinn might not even be the most famous person in his family. It's enough to make you wonder if he might be related to Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. (He assures me it's not true.)
"I'm not looking for fame, I'm looking for success in the NFL. I guess I've got some shoes to fill in that sense of it -- following A.J., following Zach -- but really, my thing is just playing the game I love to play, and it's just fortunate that I'm able to do that now and hopefully go somewhere high in the draft."
The fame is coming, though. Though Brady Quinn says he's already turned down some endorsement offers, there's no doubt you'll be seeing him in TV commercials and on billboards before you can say "overexposure."
Now all he has to do is play like a superstar in the NFL.
