Griese keeps poise, rallies Bucs in OT

By the time Brian Griese made a slow walk to the interview room late Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, Tampa Bay's locker room was nearly deserted.

"Sorry about the delay, guys," Griese said when finally arriving at the podium. "I had to ice my arm after all those throws."

Coming back to face the team that traded him in March, Griese unloaded the most pass attempts by an opposing quarterback in Bears history and rallied the Buccaneers to an improbable 27-24 overtime victory.

"I can't lie to you guys, the game meant a lot to me personally coming back," Griese said. "I was traded. So obviously, they didn't need me."

At the 6:38 mark of the fourth quarter, Griese had thrown 3 interceptions and Tampa Bay trailed the Bears 24-14. During the Bucs' next four drives - two in regulation and two in overtime - Griese completed 20 of 36 passes for 227 yards and put the final 13 points of the contest on the board.

Overall, he hit 38 of 67 attempts for 407 yards, falling 3 short of Drew Bledsoe's NFL record of 70 pass attempts, set in an overtime game against Minnesota in 1994.

"He's a guy who's as cool and calm as anybody I've ever been around," Bucs coach Jon Gruden said. "He's just got that kind of confidence in himself and that's what I love about him. He doesn't come unglued. He doesn't get rattled."

Griese's strengths and weaknesses were displayed on Sunday. He's supposed to be a relatively immobile quarterback, but in 67 pass attempts, Griese was never sacked by the Bears.

"I try to pride myself on getting rid of the football," he said. "I'd much rather throw the ball away than take sacks."

The Bears' first interception, on the second snap of the game, came on a pass that was tipped by Brian Urlacher and picked off by Lance Briggs. Griese later underthrew a deep pass and overthrew a medium route and was intercepted by Nathan Vasher and Kevin Payne, respectively.

"You have to tell yourself to continue to go out there and make plays," Griese said. "You can't worry about throwing another interception or else you won't be effective. That's the attitude that I took."

Griese felt Tampa Bay's offensive rhythm improved when it was forced to go to a no-huddle offense in the fourth quarter.

"We actually did it a little bit in the overtime," he said, "which I think tired them out a little bit, kept them off guard, limited some of their blitzes, kept them in their Tampa 2 defense a little bit more, which helped us."

During his brief time as Bears starting quarterback, Griese led surprising comeback wins at Green Bay and Philadelphia but also coughed up 7 interceptions in a couple of ugly losses to Detroit.

On Sunday, Griese was good and bad all in the same game, and it was good enough to beat the Bears.