The NFL draft is nearing. This means that the weak teams in the NFL are about to pay a Dr.Evil-type sum of money (and I don’t mean what he was asking for right out of cryogenic freezing, I’m talking the exorbitant variety) for a quarterback savior.

The savior business is the heaviest of responsibilities. Not many have the shoulders to bear it. However, there are some big names in this year’s draft that would have you believe they are ready to bear that responsibility.

Sam Bradford.
Colt McCoy.
Tim Tebow.
Jimmy Clausen.

Who is the right pick?

The first three are among the winningest college quarterbacks of all time. The fourth played at the highest-pressure school in the country. Bradford and Tebow have Heismans. McCoy has left the field with the higher score more often than any other. Clausen was once called “the Lebron James” of high school football. All were college golden boys.

Still after saying all that, there is really only one choice.

You can throw out Tebow, because you probably want a guy that will actually stay at quarterback. (He is more fit to be a preacher than NFL quarterback.) He doesn’t have the release, arm strength, or the skills to read NFL defenses. He doesn’t even have the all-around game of former Urban Meyer prodigy Alex Smith, and Smith hasn’t been able to cut it in the NFL.

You can throw out Colt McCoy, unless you want a nice backup quarterback with your first round pick. Great kid, great leader in college, can make it happen on the college football field. However, he racked up great completion percentages because he spent most of his time throwing 5 yard passes, and won because he was surrounded by phenomenal talent. When the talent is equal, McCoy is not good enough to be the difference.

That leaves Bradford and Clausen.

Most thing Bradford is the pick. Why? He has more “upside”. ESPN personality Colin Cowherd reiterated these thoughts on his show. Though Cowherd does think Clausen will start faster due to his upbringing in Charlie Weis’s Pro-Style offense. (What this means is, Clausen understands protection schemes, what to do against “odd”, and even” defensive fronts, where the “mike” linebacker (key to the defensive scheme) is, and where secondary receivers will be. No other college quarterback can boast this.)

So, Clausen is ahead now, but what about the upside issue? Or Clausen’s maturity issue that many talk about?

I can tell you now, I’ve seen both play, and I don’t see anything that Bradford has over Jimmy. Bradford played with more overall talent (by far), a better offensive line, and a defense that allowed him to play without the predictability of pass on every play. Clausen had none of this. Plus, Jimmy played on a toe that was found to have torn ligaments-he had trouble throwing off his foot all year (and still threw 28 tds to 4 picks). Both are deadly accurate, though Clausen’s passes have a slight edge, they can find their target like Tiger finds hookers. Jimmy also has the bigger arm-he can make every NFL throw. Both are smart enough to handle the pro game.

As far as Clausen’s maturity, he can be a leader. Her may or may not be an arrogant jerk off the field, but he produces on the field. That is all your teammates need to see in the NFL to gain respect.

So, in other words, I won’t hate on a team for picking Bradford, he may become very good. However, Jimmy Clausen is the best quarterback in the draft. Period.

We all knew Brady Quinn had fallen. We just didn’t know it was this far. His may not have been a Ryan Leaf-type fall, but the former Notre Dame star couldn’t even march his way up the Cleveland Browns depth chart, which is essentially as hard as getting a job as an Ice Cream Taste Tester (So, do you enjoy eating? If yes, you are hired.). If you can’t start for the Browns after three years, something is amiss. Mike Holmgren figured this as well, and he dealt Quinn to the Broncos for a fullback and 6th-round draft pick.

So, Brady has gone from Notre Dame stud, and possible franchise qb, to basically being traded for peanuts (and not the good Planters kind, either), hoping to resurrect his career in Denver (it is possible, they do have a solid defense, running game, and enough overall talent to make a playoff push). While it is too early to dissect whether he will do this, it is not too early to reflect on just how unvaluable the once-mighty Quinn is right now (Keep in mind, he was traded for a guy that plays the most useless position on the football field-can anyone name 2 starting fullbacks off the top of their heads?).

With that in mind, here are 10 Things the Blarney believes Quinn could have been traded for:

1.) 10,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. Really, not as good as it sounds.

2.) 3,000 copies of Milli Vanilli’s 1988 “Girl You Know It’s True” album. So, you lip-synch a few thousand times, and people forget the pleasures of listening to this album?

3.) 2,000 Polaroid Cameras. Because some people still enjoy the hassle of developing and paying for film.

4.) 1,000 VCRs. There still might be a cult out there that doesn’t prefer movies with a clear picture, and good sound, right?

5.) A lifetime subscription to the (insert newspaper here). When news breaks, some want to wait to read it in print.

6.) 500 Marv Albert hair pieces. Always be ready to fight the effects of male-pattern baldness.

7.) 5 tickets (typical family size) to a Toad The Wet Sprocket concert. There has to be some value in exclusivity. With these 5 tickets, that would ensure there are only 10 people in the world at this concert.

8.) A Ford Pinto, and Ford Edsel. You can’t live rich without a couple of dream cars.

9.) The copyright to the movie, Freddy Got Fingered. The licensing options must be endless on this one.

10.) The whole Oakland Raiders franchise. With the talent that Al Davis has assembled, this could be a fair trade.

Brady Quinn once saved my life.

I was down. I was out. Crushed. Beaten up. I was more pathetic than a grown man who actually thought it would be fashionable to wear a Donald Duck costume during one of his big concerts (Elton John), or a man that is almost 60 years old, and still calls himself “Sting” (ummm…that would be Sting). It was all because of Notre Dame football, how it was doing about as well as Verne Troyer in a drunken stupor. The Davie/Willingham era of football (run, run, incomplete pass/bubble screen for minimal yards, punt) was an offensive catastrophe of ineptitude on the level of Armageddon (not the actual Armageddon, but Ben Affleck’s acting in the movie). The Irish offense was about as exciting as Betty White’s current sex life.

Then, the Brady Quinn offense arose, lighting up the skies for over 300 yards/game, and multiple touchdown tosses. Highlight after highlight of bombs to Stovall and Samardzija. The thirty-point game was a guarantee. Notre Dame football was fun again, for the first time in a long time.

Brady Quinn used to be the man.

The straight-out-of-a-fairy-tale hero. The golden-boy quarterback that Notre Dame craves. I used to tell my buddies that the Irish were a 5-win team without him, and if he had a defense (like Troy Smith, Jamarcus Russell, etc. had), he would have been a national championship quarterback. He had the tools, smarts and tutelage (Weis), to make his mark in the NFL.

But now?

It is 3 seasons later, and Quinn has done nothing. It’s not easy to become a star if you are drafted by the Browns, but Brady never did enough to really impress anyone in the organization. The Browns went mostly with a guy that threw enough questionable passes to make Brett Favre say “Holy Shit!”, and even after dealing him, they still don’t like what they have in Quinn.

So they are shopping him around, most likely ending his Cleveland career before it even started.

So, what happened to the quarterback I saw in college?