poor poor Athena

[LiftingIsLife]

Looks like she might be in 'mourning' today, after her beloved Chicago
Bears got taken to the 'woodshed' by those great behemoths from
New England !!

maybe she can tryout to replace their, how shall i say this politely,
'less than effective' quarterback

j/k
~lifer

[Firepower]

Lovie Smith should've let Brian Griese play. The Bears played sloppy and had 4 turnovers. I'm not surprised that the Patriots won. They're a good team.

[LiftingIsLife]

the bears are a good team also. unfortunately, with that Grossman kid at QB they have NO chance of winning the super bowl (might not even get there)

~lifer

[Firepower]

Grossman just needs more experience. But playing against the Patriots defense, the Bears should've put in a veteran. You never know. The bears might go to the superbowl. They have a top notch defense. When the bucs won the superbowl, they had a really good defense and a mediocre offense.

[Athena]

I'm not in mourning...I'll take OUR record at 9-2 over YOUR record (what is it now? 4-7? something like that? ) ANY day!!

No, they should NOT have played Griese. He's been bounced from team to team to team and benched each time for a reason. My personal opinion. Rex does need a bit more time. And, seriously, give him a few more years and he'll be a Hall of Famer like Tommy Boy.

No one gives the Bears credit. Even during the game both commentators were talking about the bad breaks for the Pats and not giving credit to the Bears for anything. WTF?

Still, though, I called it a close game and knew it would be. The Pats have the second best defense, especially against the running game, in the NFL. Coupled with a QB like Tommy and I knew it would be tough...I just didn't think we'd suck quite that badly!

I give your boys props, I certainly do....and there's always NEXT time.


P.S. I owe you photos from the mountains, don't I?

[Firepower]

Originally Posted by Athena

No, they should NOT have played Griese. He's been bounced from team to team to team and benched each time for a reason.

hmmm....I don't know why people think Griese is bad. I agree that Grossman is the future QB and should be the starting QB, but Griese is more experienced and better than you think. He should've atleast played the 2nd half of the game against the Patriots. Last year, he led the Bucs to a 5-1 start before tearing his ACL. The only reason the Bucs let him go at the end of the season was because of salary cap issues in which they couldn't afford to keep him. Plus, they were hoping Chris Simms would be the future long term QB, but he turned out to be a bust. Here's some interesting stats about Griese:

"Griese started 72 of the 75 games he's played in the NFL since entering the league with the Denver Broncos in 1998. He's completed 63.1 percent of his career passes and thrown for 16,344 yards and tossed 103 touchdowns and 78 interceptions.

During his two seasons with the Bucs, Griese has completed 67 percent of his passes and thrown for 3,768 yards while tossing 27 touchdowns and 19 interceptions.

Griese helped get the Bucs off to a 5-1 start in 2005 by completing 64.4 percent of his passes for 1,136 yards and tossing seven touchdowns and seven interceptions. However, Griese's 2005 campaign was cut short when he tore ligaments in his left knee in a Week 6 game vs. the Miami Dolphins."

I got this from one of the Bears message boards:

"So Brian Griese played for 3 teams in 3 seasons. What does that prove? How was Chris Simms doing this year before being injured? Why did Tampa Bay finish 6-5 including a playoff loss with Chris Simms with the exact same team Brian Griese was 5-1 with? How has the Miami QB situation worked out thus far since Griese left in 2003? Daunte Culpepper, AJ Feeley, JOEY HARRINGTON?!?! Yeah, they have really panned out well.

Anyone care to know about those teams that Griese played for in those 3 years?

The 2002 Denver Broncos went 9-7 but did not make the playoffs. Griese was 8-5 as a starter and they were 1-2 in games Griese did not play, with their win coming against the lowly Arizona Cardinals on the last games of the season. It should also be noted that Denver was primarily a rushing team that season but Griese still accumulated a career high 3,214 yards. Their defense was worse than people care to remember, but there is a reason that Clinton Portis was shipped to Washington soon after.

The 2003 Miami Dolphins had absolutely no offense at all outside of Ricky Williams. Their leading receiver had less than 1,000 yards and Williams was 2nd on the team in receptions. In 5 starts, Griese went 3-2 as a starter with his 2 losses coming against Indianapolis and Tennessee. Both teams were powerhouses that year and lost to the eventual SB winners - New England. Of Griese's 6 interceptions that year, 3 were against the Titans in a game he had 0 TDs. He had 5 TDs and 3 Ints in the other 4 games.

The 2004 Tampa Bay Bucs were horrible. They went 5-11 as a team, yet somehow Griese managed to post a 97.5 rating while passing for 20 TDs and only 12 Ints in only 10 starts. His primary target was a rookie WR (Micheal Clayton) and the rest of the offense was plagued with injuries so heavily that TB signed Tim Brown!

He ranks 15th all time in passer rating coming into this season (minimum of 1,500 attempts).

If you insist that he is just a dink and dunk passer, he's averaged over 10 yards per completion every year that he has started a game and his career yards per attempt is higher than Rex Grossman's."

[Athena]

^^ Interesting stats about Griese -- obviously I wasn't aware that he was this good.

It just seems every time I run across him (which isn't often) he doesn't seem to be handling the passing game well. But again, I haven't paid much attention to him (again, obviously based on the stats you just posted).

Still, was the Miami team the same -- really the same, down to a player -- between Griese and Sims?

[LiftingIsLife]

Originally Posted by Athena

P.S. I owe you photos from the mountains, don't I?

ya, that you do. i'll send you an email to remind you

~lifer

[Firepower]

Originally Posted by Athena

It just seems every time I run across him (which isn't often) he doesn't seem to be handling the passing game well. But again, I haven't paid much attention to him (again, obviously based on the stats you just posted).

Still, was the Miami team the same -- really the same, down to a player -- between Griese and Sims?

Miami team?...Do you mean Tampa? If so, yes. When he got injured, Simms took over at QB, lost several games, but ended up leading the Bucs to the playoffs. Not sure if you read the article on yahoo about Grossman. But in it, they were saying that Grossman is holding the team back because of his inability to mature as a QB and how he melts under pressure from the defense. They also mentioned how he likes to throw deep balls. I can see why though. It's because he used to do it all the time when he played at Univ of FL. But in the NFL, the players are bigger, better, faster, and stronger. So it's harder to throw the deep ball. His last throw during the Patriots game was a deep ball. and what happened? it got intercepted....and there was plenty of time left on the clock to march down the field.

As for Griese, the reason the Bears signed him was because they needed a plan B in case Grossman didn't pan out. I think Griese's contract is $20 million over 5 years. Why would the Bears pay that much for a backup QB when they probably could've signed him for veterans minimum? The bucs are wishing they kept him because they need a solid qb. With Simms out for the season (and possibly out of the Bucs for good), the team has to rely on a rookie qb.

The Bears are my second favorite team (Bucs being 1st). But going against a really good team like the New England Patriots, I think Lovie Smith should've put in a more seasoned qb for the second half of the game...jmo

[AmyJ]

Da Bears!

Grossman is def struggeling, but I have hope that as he gets more experience he'll be doing better. As long as the rest of the team doesn't fall apart by the time he's got some experience in the game, Bears will rock. 9-2 is a good record though, too bad you can blame both the losses on one guy.

[FadeToBright]

haha i <3 my New England Pats. Where I work, @ Best Buy, they're always in there.