Last weekend's NFL Draft was a great time to not need a quarterback. After the Tennessee Titans' selection of Jake Locker—and not, for whatever reason, Mizzou's Blaine Gabbert—sparked a run on quarterbacks, the draft's treasure chest of defensive difference-makers stayed shut longer than expected, leaving Robert Quinn, a ferocious pass-rusher from UNC, free for the taking with the 14th pick.
Whatever plans the Rams might have had—they were frequently connected with Illinois's Corey Liuget in the weeks leading up to the draft—changed at that moment: Name-brand had just gone on sale at generic prices, and with Sam Bradford keeping them off the quarterback bandwagon, they were in a position to take the deal.
Quinn is really a double bargain: The quarterback run turned out to be a coupon that was, for once, valid with other offers. Definitely off the board before the Rams if the Titans hadn't decided they needed a quarterback, any quarterback, he might have been the number one pick in the draft if he'd actually played college ball last season—a low-dollar scandal involving premature contact with an agent kept him out of football in 2010. Between that and a benign brain tumor that nearly ended his football career in high school, he's a fascinating story, and not quite as risky, it seems, as he sounds. (It is, I admit, not difficult to be less risky than "he was banned from college football and had an inoperable brain tumor in high school" sounds.)
The rest of the Rams' draft is full of question marks, most of them relating to how the three possession-oriented receivers they selected are going to fit into their new offense, but at the front of their draft they managed to pick up an exclamation point. Quinn is a top-of-the-draft talent, and for once a season of failure wasn't necessary to win the give-away.
