Robert Quinn on Pace to Play 18, Gives Insight into Personal Toll of Trade

The last time a player played 18 games is believed to be 1930, but Quinn is also adjusting to a new team, teammates, and city, while leaving his family behind in Chicago

PHILADELPHIA – It’s a weird numbers game for Eagles defensive end Robert Quinn, sort of like a complex math equation with an answer that’s hard to believe.

He is 32 and has been in the league for 12 seasons and might be the first player to play 18 since 1930.

As in 18 regular-season games.

Sooner or later, that will happen, because the NFL will eventually go to an 18-game season, but, for now, it’s 17.

If Quinn stays healthy, he’s trending toward playing one more, because he never got a bye week. 

He was traded to the Eagles during their Week 7 bye, but he had played on Monday night that week when he was with the Bears and Chicago traveled to New England and beat the Patriots.

“That’s not really a record I’m looking for – 18 games and no bye week?” he said at his locker on Thursday. “Come on, man. You can borrow my pads if you want to do that. You know what I mean. 18 weeks, no bye week, Year 12. It’s a heck of an adjustment, and a new city. It’s been fun (laughs), that’s the best way to look at it.”

So, this most recent mini-bye was helpful to him. He played just nine snaps against the Texans, but head coach Nick Sirianni insisted that wasn’t by design or have anything to do with preserving the bye-less Quinn.

So, how did Quinn spend his precious few days off after winning in Houston?

There wasn’t a whole lot of playbook immersion because, he said, he is more of an on-field learner.

“I sat on the couch, drinking sweet tea,” he said. “That’s pretty much all I did. I didn’t do a whole lot.”

It’s a couch in a hotel. That’s where Quinn is living after being traded.

Asked if the bed is an adequate size to contain his 6-4 frame so his feet don't spill over the bottom of it, he said: “Look, you make it work. If I don’t like the bed, I sleep on the floor.”

This is the side fans don’t see – the upheaval of an in-season trade.

He has three children, ages 11, 7, and three months.

“That’s the one (where it feels like) they took me from my baby, to be honest,” he said of the three-month-old.

At least he’s sleeping well at night without a crying baby to wake him for a feeding or to have a diaper changed, right?

“No, I try, but no,” he said. “It doesn’t work when you’re not under your roof. It’s just a little different. They’ve been up here. But they haven’t moved up here.”

It’s easy to say, well, he’s being paid handsomely to play a game, and he is, but he’s human, too, and clearly family means much to him.

“We’re just football players, right? We’re no longer humans once we put on the jersey,” he said when asked about the transition from city to city on short notice. “It’s a headache, the transition, especially if you’ve got a wife and kids like me. 

"You gotta pick your family up and move. Like I was saying earlier, the guys in the locker room make it easier, but it still sucks. It’s a transition, but a transition to a great place, so I can’t really complain. That’s what makes it easier.”

The last two players believed to have played 18 games in a season were Tony Costos and Cookie Tackwell for the Frankford Yellow Jackets and Minneapolis Red Jackets.

Quinn has already played the Washington Commanders once this season. 

He will do it again on Monday night when they visit Lincoln Financial Field. Chicago lost 12-7, in the game where Carson Wentz injured his thumb which landed him on IR.

“Same old team,” he said when asked how different they were from that game on Oct. 13. “Even though I’m on a new team, I think it’s going to be the same type of game plan that they draw up every week. 

"Whatever it takes to win for them. At the end of the day, we got our basic responsibilities here.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.