Tony Capriolo
Senior Sports Producer

I'm in a management meeting yesterday, discussing our postseason plans for the Chicago Bears when someone turns to me and asks: "So what do you think about this Grossman/Griese thing???" At the time I mentioned that I thought it was one hell of a dilemma. On one hand you have Rex Grossman whose ceiling is clearly (at least in my humble opinion) much higher than that of Brian Griese's. On the flipside, you have a Bears team that is without question capable of going to the Super Bowl this year. In fact, in this year's NFC there's no reason they SHOULDN'T get to Miami... unless Rex kills them in the postseason with another 4-turnover performance. So while I think Rex's growth should be extremely important... you wonder if this team, THIS year is better off without him.

Well, I've been thinking about that for the last 24 hours and I've decided I'm an idiot for even entertaining the thought. And I'm stunned that the Rick Morrisseys and Carol Slezaks of the world (both of whom are normally very clear-thinking, sharp columnists) are falling for this mistaken belief that anyone must be better than Hexy Rexy.

Let's look at this two different ways. First, Grossman vs Griese. There seems to be this belief that turning to Brian Griese will mean turning the team over to a smart veteran who won't turn the ball over and therefore will allow the Bears to win with their defense and field position... you know, the Kyle Orton way. Let's ignore the fact that that's scared football and a horrible message to send to the offense , in the first place. Instead, let's examine if that's even true.

In Rex Grossman's 19-game NFL Career he's thrown 20 interceptions.
In Brian Griese's 75-game NFL Career he's thrown 78 interceptions.
Oh oh, wait a minute. That can't be right. Griese has thrown 3 more interceptions than games played???? But he's the game-managing veteran, right? Certainly that must be because he struggled early in his career and then got better!

In Brian Griese's last 4 seasons (For 3 different teams mind you), he's thrown 40 interceptions in 35 games.
Wait a minute... that's even WORSE!
Listen folks, there's a reason Brian Griese's been on four teams in his NFL career. There's a reason the Broncos gave up on him to bring in (gulp) Jake Plummer. There's a reason the Dolphins, who haven't seen a quarterback since Dan Marinio left, sent him away after one year. And there's a reason the Buccaneers didn't think he could beat out the infinitely overrated Chris Simms. Heck, one of my colleagues in Denver told me during the preseason that Griese's MO is to look fantastic in training camp and preseason... make everyone a believer... and then fall apart during the season. It's what he does.
The bottom line is there's simply no reason to believe Brian Griese will either play better or manage the game better than Rex Grossman. Is he a good back-up? Absolutely. But don't be swayed into believing he'll come in here and either a) jump start the offense or b) throw less interceptions.

But truly, that's not even the crux of my argument. Here's something I know I don't have to tell any Bears fan... or Bears beat writer... or anyone that's spent more than a minute a season looking at the team: They don't have a quarterback. EVER. Do you realize since Brett Favre became the starting quarterback in Green Bay, the Bears have had TEN different quarterbacks lead them in passing yards for the season??? Grossman this season will make it ELEVEN. That's insane. This organization HAS to find a quarterback. I don't mean a guy who can play for a year or two... I mean a guy that they can put in that position for 10 years and build around. They need to find someone so they can stop worrying year-in and year-out about who that guy is going to be and in the meantime watch this championship-caliber defense slowly fade away.

Speaking of Favre, more stats, because I'm a complete dork:
Rex Grossman 1st 19: 297-541 (54.9%) 3,693 Yards, 22 TD, 20 INT
Brett Favre 1st 19: 374-592 (64.1%) 3,926 Yards, 22 TD, 18 INT

Not real different, huh? Favre completed a better percentage, but Rex's yards per attempt (6.8) are better than Favre's (6.6) and Rex has thrown as many TDs and essentially the same number of interceptions (especially when you factor in Brett's 50 more attempts). In addition, the way Grossman is driving some people crazy? It is virtually identical to what happened to Favre in the early part of his career. I know, I saw it happen. (for those of you who don't know, I was the sports producer at the ABC affiliate in Green Bay in another lifetime) Favre would complete 60% of his passes, throw 2 TDs and no INTs in a win at Detroit one week... then throw 3 brutal interceptions and lose to an awful Giants team the next. Coach Holmgren didn't know what to do with his talented pupil. If you can ever catch the NFL Films special with Holmgren and his coaching tree (Gruden, Mariucci, Reid, etc...) there's a nice chunk where they talk about Favre driving them all nuts.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't in anyway, shape or form mean to imply that Rex will become Brett. I don't know how good he'll be anymore than anyone else does. But you have to find out. Rex is capable of big things... we've seen that. Yes, he's also capable of bad things... and it would be horrible to have one of those "bad things" happen at Soldier Field in January. But if I'm going down, I'm going down swinging with the guy who could be my quarterback for 10 years.