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Gumped-out Griese makes grade, for now

By GARY SHELTON
Published October 3, 2005

	[Times photo: Jim Damaske]
	One play after Marcus Pollard's near score, the foot of Plant High graduate Mike Williams lands out of bounds, making it an incompletion. Bucs Forum | Photo gallery Bucs Hotline: 866-371-9605 4-0 by inches Defense closes out, avoids repeats of '04 Pittman: no whine, no pout, all clutch Walker's hustle play saves the day, again Williams reminds all that he's only human John Romano: Gimme 5

TAMPA - The quarterback's brains were scrambled. Perhaps you did not need to be a physician to make the diagnosis.

Brian Griese couldn't think straight. Couldn't throw straight, either. His brain seemed to have little in common with his arm, except that both were thoroughly scattered. He seemed beleaguered. Also, bewildered.

Perhaps you figured that out, too.

Such was the way Griese spent his Sunday afternoon, with glassy eyes and a wayward arm, a man stumbling through the fog on his way to a 4-0 start. That he ended up on the proper side of the scoreboard is amazing indeed.

So ask yourself: Is Griese to be praised, or is he to be buried?

Rarely has it been so difficult to grade the performance of an athlete. At times, Griese was the reason his team had the lead, and at times, he was the reason the lead wasn't bigger. At times, he was the Bucs' best weapon and, at times, the Lions'.

On a day the Bucs had to win without Cadillac Williams, Griese threw for 302 yards. Also, he threw three interceptions and fumbled once.

He led his team on a 90-yard drive just before the end of the first half. And he made some throws that weren't in the same area code as his receivers.

He showed toughness. And, once again, he made baffling decisions.

"He made a couple of birdies and an eagle," Bucs coach Jon Gruden said. "And he made a couple bogeys."

"I was kind of on a seesaw today," Griese said.

Much of the reason, it should be said, was because Griese was knocked all teeter-totter by Lions linebacker Boss Bailey, who crunched Griese after a 7-yard scramble in the second quarter. Griese led with his head, not a particularly shrewd move in itself, and suddenly, his lights were flickering. When a cerebral quarterback leaves his IQ points scattered around the turf, the results often are not pretty.

"I was dazed there for a while," Griese said. "It takes the feeling out of your legs for a little while. I didn't feel like I was all there. Throws I would make in my sleep, I wasn't making. I knew there was something wrong, but at the end of the day, you have to be there for your teammates."

After that, Griese was a punch-drunk fighter, and it showed. His rhythm disappeared, his timing. Football players know the look of a well-rung bell, and around Griese, his teammates could tell something was wrong.

"He wasn't right," running back Michael Pittman said. "His eyes looked glassy. They were wide open, like if somebody was scared. Like, "Wow.' And the way he was talking ... he really couldn't answer the question."

There was a play, Pittman remembered, when he felt he had been open on a pass play.

"Brian, what happened?" Pittman asked in the huddle.

Griese looked at Pittman for a moment, then asked, "What, Pitt?"

"I just asked you a question," Pittman said. "Did you see the checkdown?"

Griese stared, trying to focus. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The checkdown," Pittman said. "The checkdown was open."

Griese looked at him vacantly, as if Pittman were speaking in a foreign tongue. Finally, he said, "Are you sure?"

"I was like, "What are you talking about, man?"' Pittman said, laughing. "Forget it, man. Forget it.' That's how I

knew Brian was messed up."

On the sideline, Gruden could see that Griese was affected, too.

"I could tell in the way it affected his rhythm, his footwork," Gruden said. "His timing is one of the strengths he has. He was short on a couple of his drops.

"There were some plays he was out of character. He usually makes great decisions."

Actually, it might make your own head feel a little better to know there was a reason Griese looked so utterly vapor-locked at times. Perhaps someone should check to see if a blow to the head was involved in those occasional lapses of judgment he has had in the team's first three games.

Still, Griese said most of his fog was in the first half, and in the fourth quarter, he still made a throw to the wrong jersey.

"I need to get better in my decision-making," Griese said. "If I'm out there, I need to make better decisions."

No one will argue. At his best, Griese is a guile quarterback, someone who has to depend on accuracy and acumen to succeed. Yet, two or three plays a game, he seems to go all Forrest Gump.

There were plays to criticize Sunday, too. The interceptions when he seemed to lock onto his target. The incompletions he sailed. The decisions he made.

Then there were the other plays. The sharp strike to Joey Galloway, who burst through the Lions secondary for an 80-yard reception. The 90-yard drive before the half, ending when he dropped a nice pass into Pittman's hands.

Remember, this game was in Griese's hands. For three weeks, he has been little more than the chief mechanic at the Cadillac Ranch. Suddenly, he was asked to win a game. He wobbled some, but at the end, he was upright.

Between the praise and the problems, then, how should you grade this day by the quarterback? For the toughness? For the wildness? For winning a game? For almost losing one?

That's easy. His team won. Worry about the weeks to come, if you want, but a winning scoreboard forgives everything else.

Besides, that's the blessing of a nice blow to the noggin.

After a while, you can't remember a thing.

[Last modified October 3, 2005, 01:15:16]