The conventional wisdom in pro sports is that if you're paying a star big money then you have to play him. Otherwise, you're wasting your investment.

Not so in the current case of Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn, whose benching will cost him millions of dollars in lost performance bonuses. For more on Wall Street performance bonuses, plus a brief comparison between bonuses on Wall Street and in the NFL, see this WSJ story.

By the way, click on the above video and you'll see that Quinn couldn't even get any sugar from his girlfriend during draft day. Poor guy. He's not suffering as much as the average Cleveland resident, but still ...

In Quinn's contract case, because of performance incentives, his recent benching (again) could save the team $11 million, according to ESPN reports this morning. (Contract details vary, source to source.) He needs to take 70 percent of the snaps this season to reach his contract's performance incentives, and there's no way he'll do it from the bench.

Neck-and-neck with Derek Anderson in the battle for the QB job — neither has been very effective — Quinn is actually doing the team a favor by sitting on the bench — not to mention the favor he's doing by not exhibiting his erratic play. Anderson's contract is for less money, so if both are so-so, Quinn might as well be mediocre on the sidelines.

Quinn could very well be traded — that would save the Browns even more money.