Well, apparently the Saints signed themselves a backup quarterback yesterday, reportedly agreeing to terms with Mark Brunell. And you have to figure that everybody’s favorite Mozart-lovin’ third stringer probably woke up this morning entweder sehr glücklich oder sehr angepisst.

That’s Brunell on the right, by the way. That last year in DC messed him up pretty good. Then again, a year in DC tends to do that to a lot of guys.

Oh sure, we could spend the next several paragraphs analyzing all the pros and cons of what Brunell brings to the Saints, and how he compares to Jamie Martin. But let’s not bore the shit out of ourselves, m’kay?

He’s seven months younger than Martin, is roughly the same height and weight, and just like Martin, he completed zero passes for zero yards, zero touchdowns and zero interceptions last year. Brunell is slightly more of a threat to beat you with his feet, having rushed for 3 more yards last year than Martin’s -3. So he’s got that going for him. Which is nice.

But the real significance of this signing probably lies here, in an interesting excerpt from a scouting report about The Next Johnny Lujack:

Compares To: Mark Brunell, Washington Redskins … Palko has great temperament and drive on the field, but the left-handeder shows the mobility and improvisational skills that made Brunell successful earlier in his career … Unfortunately, like Brunell, Palko sometimes "overworks" and over analyzes things on the field and a bad play will linger in his mind, taking him out of his game.

We’ll refrain from discounting the entire analysis based on the WTF use of "left-handeder" (rather than the far more appropriate, and less-ignorant linkshändig, of course) and assume that whoever wrote that has some semblance of a clue what he’s talking about.

Now on one hand, Brunell appears to have been the Saints’ second choice at best, as it’s generally accepted as truth that they did in fact offer a contract to the right-handed Trent Green first.

Green, by the way, was born in 1970 just like Martin and Brunell, and while he did accumulate some stats last year by virtue of taking some snaps and not immediately taking a knee, which is more than Martin and Brunell combined, he also produced 4 more turnovers than touchdowns before diving in front of a dude’s knee and taking a few steps toward The Light before apparently deciding "Nah, screw that, there are still clipboards to hold. I’ve got to live, man! LIVE!!!"

You’ve gotta figure that not signing Green was a bullet dodged, while at the same time shuddering at the thought of Mickey Loomis choosing to step in front of the aforementioned bullet in the first place.

It can also be reasonably assumed that the Saints had genuine interest in David Carr, though again you have to wonder why, and it’s quite possible that Jamie Martin informed the Saints that he intends to retire, which could conceivably make Brunell the Saints’ fourth choice.

You’d like to think that the days of the Saints’ front office being saved from themselves by dumb luck borne of even more dumbfounding decision-making processes of third parties have long since passed. But boy, sometimes it’s hard not to still wonder.

On the other hand, can it really be just a happy coincidence that now that Brunell is a Saint, most of his time not spent trying to keep Hollis Thomas from running some of that Hollis-patented smoove game on his daughter will probably be spent coaching up his own personal doppelgänger von dreizehn jahren folglich?

Meh. Yeah, probably. The whole thing about Brunell not being the first choice is pretty compelling evidence that this is probably primarily a case of dumb luck. Or at least shifting priorities once Plan A didn’t pan out. (And I have to ask again, why exactly was Trent Green Plan A?)

But dumb luck is better than no luck at all, and given a choice between Jamie Martin, Trent Green and a linkshändig three-time Pro Bowler who is the very embodiment of the most optimistic projections of what Der Kommissar could conceivably develop into someday, I’ll take what’s behind Door #3 thank you very much.

A potentially equally important implication of the signing (assuming anyone down on Airline has realized it yet, and I suppose we’ll go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt) is the investment they seem to be making in Der Kommissar himself. It’s one thing to kick Jason Fife to the curb, it’s a whole ‘nother to bring in a #2 whose strongest apparent appeal is the ability to contribute to your development.

On one hand, if you’re Palko, don’t you have to feel pretty good about that?

On the other hand, do you feel passed over, if the assumption is that whoever ends up listed as the Saints’ second string quarterback will probably end up with little more than a few snaps out of the Victory Formation™ and maybe a rest-the-starters-before-the-playoffs start (or four?) And that, if that’s management’s assumption, then it oughta be you taking those snaps?

Surely you realize that you’re not ready yet, not nearly ready, but are you demoralized by the implication that you’re not even ready for meaningless garbage time? (Sorry Tyler, I meant "meaningleß" )

It certainly is an interesting development for Tyler, and for those of us who actually concern ourselves with where The (whole) Der Kommissar Experience is going to end up leading to. Whether blind luck on the part of the front office, or all part of the Grand Plan we all hope actually exists, the workplace dilemma facing Palko at this point is certain to answer at least one question:

Is Tyler Palko an asshole?

(We here at moosedenied are hoping betting that he’s not.)