At least the entire fourth quarter for the Packers game, part of the fourth quarter or the entire second half if there is a blowout in Detroit next week.

Rex did play awfully well today though. Almost 350 yards today?

Yikes!

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RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

He should have got some time in the fourth quarter today. That is until the complete breakdown on defense and the Hester fumble. He needs a couple of quarters to get the rust off.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

At this point, I think he'll get some time in the GB game, but we're clearly going to win/lose with Rex Grossman.

id like to see griese in with the starters during the GB game. let him get a little bit of a feel for the WRs and clark just in case he needs to come in during the playoffs

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I think we're going to see a lot more player rotations over the next two games - that way Lovie can still say he's playing his starters, and he will also be able to give them less snaps, but also keep them fresher. For example, I think we will continue to see Adrian Peterson, and probably a little more than what we have seen. Probably more OL substitutions/player rotations, etc.

The biggest thing we need is to get our injured players healthy - Nathan Vasher, Todd Johnson, and John Tait in particular, but also some of the nagging injuries like Thomas Jones and Brian Urlacher.

That's my point exactly - I think Jones is banged up so I think while he may play next weekend, if there's any lingering injury, I think he'll sit out in Week 17 - but, even next week, if he does play, they are going to be putting Peterson out there more than usual just so that everyone is as fresh as possible while still playing meaningful snaps.

I'm not against that if that's what Lovie decides to, no big deal, but I think I would rather see our starters play, with more rotations like I mentioned above, against the Lions, and then in the last game, use the starters a lot more sparingly in that last game.

Lovie is a bit of a pickel for that Packers game - he has stated many times how important beating the Packers are so we shall see how important it actually is in a meaningless game.

Obviously, though, especially for the last game, if you are banged up at all, I don't want you playing against GB.

Please. Lovie doesn't beleive that "must beat the Packers in a meaningless game". In his initial press confrence the McCaskey's or some PR guy told him to say how important beating Green Bay was. That was just said to apease the meat heads. It's equally important to beat every team in the division. Lovie knows that and he will rest the starters in that game. He doesn't care if we win or lose it. The goal is to come out of it healthy.

Give Griese the next two full games. Home field is already secured, and Rex is obviously just going to "play it safe" from here on out, so Lovie really doesn't have anything to lose by letting the back-up play.

Except for the fact that a streaky starting QB acquires 3 weeks of rust. Sitting the starters did wonders last year.

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"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." ~ H.L. Mencken

That would be crazy. You're saying give Grossman basically a month off, and then expect him to play at a high level in the 2nd round of the playoffs ? No Way!

Griese shouldn't see the field next week. Lovie has made the decision to stick with Grossman. He no longer can be pulled out of the game. Griese can play the last half of the last game but Rex needs to play the rest of the way. The only way to give Griese a shot was to put him against St. Louis or Tampa Bay and see if he is better. We have a really bad team next week and then a game in which many of the starters won't play much since everything is locked up.

It wouldn't matter if Griese throws for 500 yards against Detroit. Rex is the starting QB and we will win or lose based off of his performance. Beating up on two teams that really aren't that good did not do too much to show if Rex can avoid the costly turnovers against good opponents. If Rex has a bunch of turnovers in the playoffs than Lovie Smith is to blame. He made his decision and stuck firmly with Rex. Now he has to make sure that bad Rex does not show up. Give Griese some time to get some rust off but I really don't think it will make much of a difference.

I will never root for Rex Grossman to fail and I hope he leads us to the super bowl. If he has a bad game in the playoffs and they lose, I hope that Lovie Smith doesn't get a contract extension as the responsibility of solving the QB problems falls on him. I really hope that Brian Griese does not see the field in the playoffs, because we will be too far gone to win.

I do not know if Griese was the answer, but we should have seen him. Grossman showed over many games that he can turn the ball over in huge numbers. His inconsistency cannot be the reason that the Bears lose in the playoffs. If Rex has 3 or 4 turnovers in a loss in the playoffs it is Lovie's fault. Lovie picked him as his guy and he is now going to get the praise if he was right and he is going to get the blame if he is wrong. If Grossman has a 4 turnover game in the playoffs then Lovie was wrong. If he doesn't then Lovie was right.

Rex doesn't have to lead us to the Super Bowl, but he can't be the number 1 reason we lose a playoff game.

Also, my point is not about putting asterisks on the previous games. I was happy to see Rex do well. My point is that these next two games mean nothing now. You don't get a chance to see if Griese was better. If Griese gets in the game and throws for 6 td's and 500 yards you won't see me calling for Griese. These games are meaningless now. The only chance we had to know if he was an option was to play him in a meaningful game.

The original post was about how much should Griese play. My opinion is that it doesn't matter because he can't play in the playoffs. Lovie chose not to check out the option of Griese and see how he is. I have never said Griese would be better. I have said more consistent but not better.

If Griese had not been good, then at least we would know that. Then Lovie would have to evaluate our best chance to win. That would be Grossman.

If the Bears lose because of a lot of turnovers by Rex, then it is Lovie's fault. He didn't give us the best chance to win by looking at all options. If Rex plays anything other than bad in the playoffs then Lovie was right. Rex doesn't have to lead us to the Super Bowl to have Rex being the starter be the right decision, but he does have to not throw the game away.

Here's a nugget I found on Sunday morning:

Fox Sports' John Czarnecki reports one of the problems with Chicago is that backup QB Brian Griese hasn't shown a strong arm in practices the last couple of weeks while getting more repetitions.


I haven't heard this from anywhere else, so take it for what it's worth....

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So, in other words, we're pretty much just forgetting about the idea of knocking the rust off Griese in case Bad Rex shows up again, and also allowing an injury-prone QB to play in two games that mean NOTHING against HORRIBLE football teams just to "make sure" that Bad Rex doesn't show up?

I'll tell ya, I've never seen a bigger case of "what have you done for me lately" than I am seeing for Rex Grossman.

I guess I just don't see the point of not seeing what Griese can do in a full game (or two) simply because Lovie wants to "stick with his man". I agree Nas, Rex won't get the chance to throw 4 interceptions in the playoffs. However, you then are faced with a situation where a QB (albeit a veteran player) who hasn't played a single full game all year, even in the midst of a young quarterback who has PROVEN that he can go completely to sh!t in the blink of an eye, is asked to win a playoff game without any significant game-situation repetitions.

Now I understand that many teams can be classified in this same manner (i.e. the back-up doesn't see a full game all season yet is suddenly called upon in the postseason due to whatever reason), but we still KNOW how bad Rex can be. There is nothing wrong with being prepared.

I don't understand how a guy can throw for the first 300+ yard game in this town in four and a half seasons and people still want to bench him.

I guess the old saying of "The backup QB is always the most popular guy in town" rings true to the point of it being a caricature of itself here in Chicago.

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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a goddamn shame.

http://www.TheCommittedIndian.com/

I don't know which of you was responding to me except for Nas.

Griese should not play next week, but will get some time against Green Bay. We have a bye for Rex to rest. We don't want too much time between playing for Rex.

I don't want Grossman benched now. That window of oppourtunity is over.

For Nas, for criticizing Lovie, he didn't check out the other option. That means he made a decision that Grossman was our best chance to win. He deserves credit if he is right(not many turnovers) and deserves blame if Rex is bad(lots of turnovers) because I can almost gaurantee that a veteran like Griese would take better care of the ball, but he would also not have the potential to score as much.

By the way, I should lump Ron Turner in there also. He better have a great gameplan for the playoffs to help Rex out as much as possible.

Granted, what Rex did on Sunday was fantastic and credit is given to where it is deserved. I simply do not see the point in allowing Rex the opprotunity to lose his confidence in games that do not matter. Perhaps I am being a biased pessimist with this whole ordeal, but if Lovie is going to let the clock run out in the fourth in order to "play it safe", why does this not also hold true for resting his QB for the same mentality? I can understand not sitting him for two games, but if Rex plays in Green Bay then Lovie Smith is a hypocrite.

Ugueth, to paraphrase one of our dear friends, is Rex in fucking sixth grade? He's never lacked confidence in his abilities, he just had a period of incompetence, which is completely different.

I've never seem someone so coddled by a coaching staff, and perhaps that's why there's such resentment of him among a lot of fans. He's proven he can handle the fans giving him a rough ride and stretches of shitty play, the coaches should treat him like the quarterback they all seem to think he is.

Yesterday's exhibit in the fourth quarter sickened me from that standpoint. They had 2 timeouts and a hair over a minute to get 50 yards. If your aspiations as a team are to win the Super Bowl, that criteria alone should be enough for you to do everything you can to win in regulation, especially given the staggering statistics about the team winning the toss winning on their first possesion. Add to this the way Rex carved up TB's D at the end of the first half in the two-minute offense (using mostly check-downs), and the result is a completely gutless move on Lovie and Ron Turner's parts. Why the hell even practice the two minute drill if you're not going to run it in a game-winning situation, or worse yet are that afraid of your QB screwing the pooch in the process of running it.

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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a goddamn shame.

http://www.TheCommittedIndian.com/

That could be true. It is hard to tell where Griese is right now. There are some stories of veterans coming in and performing admirably, even with a past history that isn't great. There are other veterans that are just terrible. That is why it would have been nice to see him already. That way we would know. It would have answered the question of "Does Griese suck?" as some are saying. Now we have 2 questions.

1) Will we see good Rex or bad Rex?
2) Does Griese suck?

There is a chance that Grossman would have taken his spot back already. Griese could have been just as turnover prone and then there is no doubt that Grossman is the man. Now we have no clue. That is why it was a mistake.

For better or worse, Grossman is the man.

In a way, the defense struggling take a little pressure off of Rex. Scratch that...it puts a different kind of pressure on Rex. Before it was, "Here's the ball Rex. DON'T FUCK IT UP!". Now it's "Here's the ball. Go win us a game." One is negative pressue, one is positive pressure. Perhaps I am over thinking this, but Rex seems like he's the type of guy who will play better with nothing to lose rather than everything to lose. At least, that is how is fragile psyche is portrayed in the media. But after seeing him nearly cry during his post game press conference for the Minnesota game, it's hard to dispute that angle.

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"Tubby? Oh yes, Tubby."

I'm not saying no pressure...Now they need Rex to help them win games, rather than to not lose them. The pressure shifts from "Rex, don't suck" to "Rex, Go Win". Positive pressure instead of negative pressure.

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"Tubby? Oh yes, Tubby."