Leaning toward Griese?

Lovie Smith said he has made his mind up about the Bears' quarterback situation.

But the head coach isn't ready to make his decision public, although he seemed to indicate Brian Griese would start Sunday in Detroit against the Lions.

"Our evaluation process is going on right now," Smith said the day after Sunday night's 34-10 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. "If you come out to practice Wednesday, you'll have a better idea of who will be starting at all positions."

The assumed benching of Rex Grossman might not be official until then, when Griese is expected to get the vast majority of the reps in preparation for what would be his first start as a Bear but the 73rd of his 10-year NFL career.

Griese's last start was for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Oct. 16, 2005, when he completed 12 of 16 passes for 120 yards, 1 TD and a passer rating of 116.7 before suffering a season-ending knee injury in a victory over Miami. He was 5-1 as a starter that season and is 39-33 lifetime.

Asked specifically about his level of confidence in Griese, who completed 18 of 32 passes in mop-up duty last season, his first with the Bears, Smith wasn't very effusive.

"I have confidence in our entire football team," he said. "Brian is a part of that."

Perhaps in anticipation of Grossman's demotion, Smith seemed to go out of his way to soften the landing for the five-year veteran who ping-ponged his way through a wildly inconsistent first season as a starter last year but has played poorly in all three games this season.

"Everybody has to perform a certain way," Smith said, "and I think you know if that time comes where you need to make decisions."

That time probably is now.

Grossman has just 1 TD pass and 6 interceptions for a passer rating of 45.1, as the Bears have been outgained in passing yards by an average of 232-139.

"We're talking a lot about Rex, and I guess we should," Smith said. "(But) I would talk about our football team. I made a lot of mistakes (Sunday); we all did. That was a team loss.

"You can't give the quarterback all of the blame. There were so many things we did wrong during that football game, so many opportunities we had.

"Yes, at quarterback we made a couple of mistakes there, some things we have to avoid. But it was a 10-10 game late in the third quarter. You would like to be in that position to win the football game.

"We talk about finishing the game. We weren't able to do that. It had a little bit to do with the quarterback position, but it had a lot to do with all of us as a football team."

After Grossman's passes of 52 yards to Desmond Clark and 21 to Greg Olsen set up Cedric Benson's 1-yard TD run that tied the game at 10-10 midway through the third quarter, the Bears' collapse began.

Grossman had 9 more dropbacks, and although he completed 4 passes for 38 yards, he was sacked once and picked off twice, one of which was returned for a 28-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter that put the Cowboys up 27-10.

Benson's disputed lost fumble aided the Bears' demise, as did a couple of dropped passes by Bernard Berrian, one of which would have been a touchdown.

"A lot has been said about the quarterback position," Smith said. "Just like the rest of our football team, we didn't play good enough there, either. I'm going to say that for our entire offense, we just didn't get a lot done."

Now it looks as if Griese will get a chance to change that.