Play Griese Now

Football season is upon us and in Chicago that means Quarterback controversy. The back-up quarterback is the most beloved sport figure in Chicago. We love to complain about the starter and cry out for the lovable back-up to save the season.

Usually the back-up is no better than the starter and this is just our way of complaining about our anemic offense. However this year, for the first time in my football watching career, the Bears went out and acquired a legitimate quarterback in Brian Griese. He's an accomplished veteran who is well versed in the style of offense that the Bears run. Seemed like a good idea since our first round draft choice QB - Rex Grossman - has 8 starts in 3 seasons.

So what do the Bears do?

Instead of having an open competition for the starting quarterback job and letting the grisly veteran duke it out with the young gunslinger, the Bears coaching staff anoints Rex the starter.

I understand that they want the kid to be the future of the franchise and the only way to get him there is playing time. But this is the NFL and we haven't been to a Super Bowl since the 1985 season. The defense is set up to win it all now. All we need is a competent quarterback that will move the ball down the field and not turn it over.

So on Friday night I taped the preseason game and eventually sat down to analyze the QB situation. Of course the defense looked amazing scoring a TD on an interception and we even returned a kick for a special teams TD. I watched Rex play the entire first half and can honestly say that I was unimpressed. Here are his highlights.
7 for 14 for 83 yards. This projects out to a 166 yard game. Not good.The Bears had 6 first downs, of which 3 were by penalties that had nothing to do with the play. 3 first downs in a half. Not good.The Bears had one scoring drive while he was under center. The drive ended with Rex Grossman signature interception in the end zone. Very bad.

Griese got two drives during the game. The first was a three and out. On the second he was 2 for 2 with a TD on a 38 yard drive. That's not a lot to go on and against the second string defense. But the offense looks like it is grooving when he is in there versus the disoriented feel I get when Grossman is in.

I can only hope that during this preseason we get to see what Griese can do with the first string offense against the first string defense. I am worried that by the time he gets on the field in a real game situation that he'll be digging us out of a hole in order to get us into the playoffs.