National Football League

Fox: Quinn, Tebow on solid ground

Published Feb. 23, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

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Brady Quinn’s incendiary comments about Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow to GQ Magazine aren’t factoring into the team’s decision whether to keep the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent on the roster, coach John Fox said Thursday.

“I already know the relationship. I think (Quinn) was a great teammate to Tim. I know Tim knows that. I know their head coach knows that. We still like Brady Quinn,” said Fox, making it clear that he wasn’t ruffled by Quinn’s unflattering portrayal of Tebow in a recent GQ article titled “The year of Magical Stinking: An Oral History of Tebow Time."

If anything, Fox emphasized that Tebow and Quinn have a solid working relationship.

“Knowing their relationship, knowing both Brady and Tim very well myself, sometimes things get lost in transation,” Fox said. “I know their relationship is very close. They have a lot of respect for each other. They are very good teammates to each other.

In the GQ piece, written by longtime NFL columnist Michael Silver, Quinn was quoted questioning Tebow’s sincerity and humility. Both players are devout Christians.

“If you look at it as a whole, there’s a lot of things that just don’t seem very humble to me,” Quinn said in the interview. “When I get that opportunity, I’ll continue to lead not necessarily by trying to get in front of the camera and praying but by praying with my teammates, you know?”

Last season, Tebow vaulted past Quinn, the No. 2 passer coming out of training camp, to become the starting quarterback when Kyle Orton was injured. Quinn also implied in the GQ interview that Tebow won the starting job because of fan and community pressure.

“Early in the season, there was a game when Kyle [Orton] got hurt and the coaches were calling for me to go in, but Kyle got up and finished the game out,” Quinn said. “So I was the second-string guy. Then, a few weeks later, they decided to put Tim in. I felt like the fans had a lot to do with that. Just ’cause they were chanting his name. There was a big calling for him. No, I didn’t have any billboards. That would have been nice.”

The comments created a firestorm, and Quinn took to Twitter to “clear this thing up” with his teammate and Broncos fans, writing that Tebow “deserves a lot of credit for our success and I'm happy for him and what he accomplished. Most importantly, he is a great teammate.

"I apologize to anyone who feels I was trying to take anything away from our team's or Tim's success this season,” Quinn also wrote on Twitter.

It has been widely speculated that Quinn’s sour-grapes take on his 2012 season playing behind Tebow would guarantee he’ll never wear a Broncos uniform again. But Fox, speaking at the NFL Scouting Combine, didn’t sound like a guy who would let a magazine article determine who plays for him.

“It’s hard to stay up with all of the comments. But I kind of know what I know.”