2006-03-18

Next Man Up

The NFL is like no other league in that starters are constantly looking over their shoulder for the next man on the depth chart. One bad injury and a quarterback is relegated to journeyman status. It happened to Drew Bledsoe, it happened to Drew Brees, and now it has happened to Brian Griese.

Just a year ago, Griese was the savior at quarterback for the Bucs, a young guy who was expected to lead the Bucs to the promised land. Griese, who had replaced an aging Brad Johnson, played extremely well down the stretch of the 2004 season and was one of the more highly rated statistically quarterbacks. In 2004 Griese had the sixth highest passer rating (97.5) and the highest completion percentage (69.3) for a quarterback who started more than ten games.

Then Griese made the mistake of tearing his ACL (sarcasm intended), and now the former Michigan quarterback is looking for his fourth team in five years.

Reports are that Griese is visiting Cincinnati and Chicago, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Clearly Griese is letting his pride prevent him from making the best decision for his career. Why leave Tampa Bay, an offense you have been successful in, and a young quarterback who has yet to prove he can start an entire season (i.e. Chris Simms) for two teams with established starting quarterbacks who you are unlikely to unseat? (Although in all fairness, if Griese went to Chicago he would be one Rex Grossman injury away from starting, which is not an unlikely prospect).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not on the Chris Simms bandwagon quite yet, and I would like to see Griese make the best decision for the Bucs and for himself and resign with Tampa Bay.

2 comments:

Cutthroat Pirates said...

Johnson was better then Griese, and Simms is better then Griese, hell Rattay is better then Griese. Sure he started 5-1 last season but did you forget that Cadillac was the making it happen. Read this article about how close Gruden was on benching Griese. http://www.pewterreport.com/article.asp?action=detail&article=1787&category=

The man could not even be the Dolphins QB when they had no one.

Ski said...

yep