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Review: Paramount Room
Following Sunday's 19-16 win in Philadephia, Bears QB Brian Griese seemed to think that because there is an "I" in win, he would take the credit and claimed to have called the plays that resulted in the game winning 97-yard touchdown drive at the end of Sunday's game. He had no choice, he said, because the radio communication in his helmet stopped working just before the drive began.
When the season's going as poorly it has for the Bears, it's understandable that everybody who can lay claim to something positive would want to do so. But feathers were ruffled — and not just the Eagles' — by Griese's statement to the media. That may explain why Griese showed up at Halas Hall on Monday — "victory Monday" no less, meaning a day off for players — to hold a press conference and spread the credit like he spread the ball on Sunday. He praised Ron Turner's 2-minute drills in the playbook, and he said it wasn't better that the two couldn't communicate with the game on the line. He explained that quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton mouthed in plays. Griese's play calling was confined to no-huddle situations, which is the norm in such situations. So the winning drive was a team effort, not an act of individual brilliance, got that?
Lest some fans begin fantasizing about Griese becoming some gun-slinging offensive juggernaut out there on Sundays, David Haugh explains why letting a QB call his own plays is a bad idea. Whatever Griese had to do because of an equipment failure is one thing, but it shouldn't become the standard. Let's just hope the headsets work this coming Sunday and that equipment manager Tony Medlin can be on the list of thank yous. Griese may be better than Grossman, but he's still no Manning or Brady.
Image via AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy.
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There's something weird about this whole thing...either Turner's feathers got all ruffled from Griese's comments, or Griese was feeling a little too cocky after the game...
While he's played well in the last couple of games, I'm not ready to crown Griese for completing tons of passes against prevent defenses in the fourth quarter...his inflated numbers are due to the fact that the Bears have been trailing in just about every game in recent memory.
Did he claim to call the plays after the game, or did he say the headset went out. I think its the latter, and the media and fans ran with the idea that he called the plays. He did in fact call 4 plays on his own in a row when the play clock was still running and there was no time to signal in plays. Its all laid out clearly on the Bears website yesterday.
Regardless of who called the plays, its nice to see a Bears team march down the field in under 2 minutes with no timeouts. A rare sight indeed.
And while Griese may not be Manning or Brady, he does average more passing yards per game this year than Manning does!
It is a 2 minute drill- he should know the plays they are going to call without a headset anyway. The fact that Bears Mgmt made Greise go out there and retract his comments reflects some insecurity on Turner's part.
My favorite conspiracy theory: Griese turned off the headset because Ron Turner told him to A) Run the ball up the middle or B) Throw to just under the 1st down marker and hope the WR gets the extra 2 yards.
And didn't QBs used to call their own plays most of the time?
@kookybites
"...I'm not ready to crown Griese..."
But perhaps, you might be ready to crown his ass, at the very least, no?
If the defense had their collective act together, Griese wouldn't have to be pulling out the stops in the fourth quarter. One wonders what this team's record would be if the Bears had a defense that could stop an opponent and a decent running game.
@Editor at large...
I was waiting for someone to say something about that...