When Rex Grossman trudged off the field Sunday night, fresh off a costly interception on the Bears’ first possession, backup Brian Griese was not waiting on the sideline with a pep talk.
“No, not at that point,” Griese says. “I don’t want people talking to me when I’m playing, so I don’t say much to him about those things.”
Griese wasn’t peeling off his poncho either. But he was ready.
Monday
Arriving as always at 9 a.m., the day after a game–victory or, in last week’s case, defeat–is never an off day for the Bears’ backup quarterback. But it’s the first Monday on which Griese will have company.
“I’m not the biggest, strongest, fastest guy in the world, but I try to have an advantage in the mental aspect of the game,” he says. “That’s where my strengths are, and I try to continue to hone those. Even though I’m not playing, that’s the way I’ve always prepared. And it goes through the rest of the week as well, watching film and trying to diagnose certain things in certain situations.”
On this day, he watches film with Grossman and third-stringer Kyle Orton.
“I’m watching all the guys on offense to see what schemes are working well and what certain guys do really well, and if I’m called upon, I’ll be able to accentuate what they do well and hopefully avoid things they don’t,” Griese says.
If he is called upon. Bears coach Lovie Smith has made it clear that is unlikely to happen unless Grossman is injured. After a bad game like the Miami loss, when Grossman threw three interceptions and fumbled once, apparently nothing changes much in the meeting room either.
“It’s pretty even-keeled,” Griese says. “We try to maintain a level head. I think that’s key to playing the position. We all have bad games. If you have a bad game, you sit there and take your medicine, learn why you did the things you did and then you move on, because by Tuesday, we’ve forgotten about last week and we’re on to the next week.”
Tuesday
Spare time means only one thing to Griese: time he gets to spend with wife Brook and 6-month-old daughter Anna Lia. Tuesday, a day off for players, was a good time to have pictures of Anna Lia taken. Tuesday night is devoted to the parents.
“Every Tuesday night we get a baby-sitter and my wife and I have date night,” Griese says. “We went out to eat and went to a movie, the first I’ve been to in about six months.”
Thumbs up for “The Departed.”
Wednesday
Griese arrives at 7:30 a.m., and a full day of meetings and practice begin at 8 as the Bears’ offense installs in the base game plan all its first- and second-down plays.
“We go through all the fronts, stunts, blitzes, dogs, coverages, what [the Giants] like to do in certain situations, how much zone they play vs. man, middle of the field open, closed, all that kind of stuff,” Griese says.
In the room are Griese, Grossman, Orton, offensive coordinator Ron Turner and quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson, and the coffee flows freely. Oddly, though, there is not a lot of give-and-take between Griese and Grossman, who has had only 17 pro starts to Griese’s 72.
“I don’t say a whole lot because I see things one way and Rex might see things another way, Kyle another,” Griese says. “If people ask me questions about what I’ve done in the past or how I would implement something or what I thought, I’d give my opinion. But I’m not trying to force myself on anybody.
“I bring some experience to the table, but in no way do I want people to feel like I’m pushing what I have been through, what I know, where I’ve been.”
The quarterbacks learn which plays the coaching staff wants to run against the Giants, out of which formations and in which situations. With that, Griese applies his own system, which is to study the Giants’ defense and decipher the top three or four tendencies they have on certain downs and distances.
“Then I map what blitzes they might like in those situations, map the plays the coach likes into those different defenses, and then I say, `OK, if I get this defense, we’re probably going to be throwing the ball here,'” he says.
Griese hurries through lunch to get to his workout. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, he swims for a half-hour and alternates upper- and lower-body strength training.
“It’s hard for me because I don’t get a whole lot of reps during the week, so I have to find ways to stay in shape,” he says.
It is not uncommon for Griese, admittedly obsessed with details, to poke his head in on a conversation between a teammate and his position coach.
“As a quarterback, every little bit of information pertains to you,” he says. “I don’t care if a running backs coach is coaching a running back on how to block somebody, you really have to know how that is going to play out because it might affect how you throw the ball, might affect where you set up in the pocket, how they’re going to coach receivers to run routes, everything.”
That’s not to say Griese studies endlessly.
“The older I get, the more efficient I’ve become in what I need to know for sure, what I need to double-check on and what I already know,” he says. “And now that I have other things, a baby at home who I want to get home and see before she goes to bed, it forces me to be more efficient. But at the same time, I have to get my job done.”
At home, Griese plays with Anna Lia, and then Brook gives the baby a bath while Brian prepares dinner–chicken Capri–which he does often. He plans on cooking the entire Thanksgiving dinner for his family.
“I love to cook,” he says. “It’s kind of a de-stresser for me. It’s creative, and also it’s nurturing to provide for your family. It also takes my mind off of everything else that’s going on outside, and I enjoy that.”
Thursday
More Top Picks Best Heavy Duty Car Ramps
Griese admits it’s not easy. He has been at least a part-time starter in each of his previous nine seasons with Denver, Miami and Tampa Bay, and it is still an adjustment for him as a backup.
“It’s tough because when you win on game day, everybody is excited and you’re excited as a backup quarterback, but it’s not the same,” he says. “You don’t have the same camaraderie, you don’t have the same feeling of accomplishment that everybody else does. So that’s difficult.”
The flip side to not playing, Griese says, is that physically, he feels better than ever. The knee injury that kept him out of the last 10 games last season is no longer a factor. In practice, Griese lets Orton run the scout team, and during that time he runs short sprints to further his conditioning.
Tonight Brook cooks pot roast, and the family enjoys a visit from Brian’s dad Bob, who is in town to work as an ABC-TV analyst for the Northwestern-Ohio State game. He’s eager to see his granddaughter.
“It was good,” Griese says with a smile the next morning. “She has a little stranger anxiety, but she warmed up to him.”
Friday
It’s Griese’s busiest day of the week. After going through the nickel game plan Thursday, the offense moves on to red zone, short yardage and goal line Friday.
With the entire game plan now in front of him, he prioritizes every call, which play he likes based on different coverages: second downs from 2 and 3 yards, 4 to 6 yards, 6 to 10 yards. Same with third downs and red zone: 25-yard line to 20, 20 to 15 and so on.
As a starter, he would meet with the head coach Friday and Saturday and give him his priority calls. He has to guard against the preparation slipping “because you’re preparing for the test every week, and you don’t get to take it very often,” Griese says. “I haven’t had to take the test yet this year, so, yeah, it is difficult mentally, and you have to try to fight through it and maintain perspective and balance.”
Can he envision a day when he’s able to be satisfied with making a good living from holding a clipboard on the sideline?
“Nope,” he says without hesitation. “Quite frankly, I’ve made enough money in my career. I’m not in it for the money. I’m here for the competition, because you don’t find this anywhere else in life, the camaraderie of the guys and to take those guys and lead them in a certain direction.
“That’s why I play, and you can’t do it as a backup.”
Griese goes home at 2:30 p.m. and holes up in the basement with the game plan until bedtime.
Saturday
Two-minute drill. The Bears do it live Thursday and in walk-through mode Saturday, with a review of what the Giants have done against it defensively.
“The two-minute drill can win or lose you the game, and it’s probably the most important drill you can go through as a quarterback because oftentimes you’re calling your own plays, so you have to have studied the defenses, see what they’re doing, call plays and call the right plays in a very hurried environment,” Griese says. “Some of the best quarterbacks in the league distinguish themselves in the two-minute drill.”
At 1:15 p.m., it’s off to the airport for the flight to Newark. Because there is no official team meal Saturday night, players are on their own for dinner. Griese plans to go out with Orton, punter Brad Maynard and a few trainers and equipment guys.
Maynard began his career with the Giants, “so he’s in charge this week,” Griese says. “When we’re in Chicago, he likes to go to a sushi restaurant downtown. When we’re on the road, it’s whoever knows a place. It’s not a lot of football talk, just friends hanging out.”
Sunday
After a full week of preparation, Sunday is still a lot of guesswork, Griese says.
“Probably a majority of the stuff that you do on game day are adjustments,” he says. “Maybe 30 or 40 percent of what you practiced in a given week you hope to see on Sunday, but the rest of it is contingency plans and adjusting.”
Offensive meeting is at 12:15 at the team hotel, lunch at 1, pregame meal at 4:15, and the buses leave for Giants Stadium at 5:15. On the sideline, Griese watches the Giants’ defense.
“I’m trying to help the coaches and Rex when they come off the field about what kind of looks we got in certain situations,” Griese says. “And I’m also trying to come up with plays I think might work in certain situations based on what defenses they’re playing.”
While the Bears’ defense is on the field, Griese will often look at still photos with Grossman–one before the snap or just as the ball is snapped and another taken two to three seconds later.
“Sometimes you can tell a lot from those pictures, [and] sometimes they get blurred and you can’t tell who’s who after the ball is snapped,” Griese says. “But presnap looks help a lot.”
———-