For $26.99, Bears fans can go to www.cafepress.com and order a T-shirt that proclaims Lovie Smith’s mantra: “Rex Is Our Quarterback.”
If Grossman puts together the kind of season he anticipates and helps the Bears return to the Super Bowl, by February the shirts will be a bargain at any price. As will Grossman.
But until general manager Jerry Angelo decides his quarterback is worth the investment, you might say the Bears still are trying him on for size.
It’s an understandable position for the team as Grossman approaches the final year of his contract: He’s coming off his first season as a starter, a season best described as uneven. It’s also a risk: What guarantees do the Bears have that Grossman won’t consider a change of scenery after the way he has been treated in Chicago?
If Grossman throws for 3,500 yards and 30 touchdowns while completing 60 percent of his passes and reducing his turnovers — proficiency he expects and is capable of — imagine what a hot commodity he would be on the free-agent market. The Bears might save themselves a headache and a few million dollars if they lock up Grossman long-term in the first couple of months of the season if they see a good trend developing.
On the other hand, if Grossman regresses to the point he starts to impede a team ready to win a Super Bowl, the Bears will feel relieved they haven’t made a multiyear financial commitment to him. If the Bears were sure that wasn’t possible, Grossman would have a new contract by now.
That reality makes this Grossman’s make-or-break NFL season. All the significant questions facing the Bears depend largely on how he answers the essential one that frames this 2007 season.
Is Rex Grossman a franchise quarterback?
To evaluate how close to that status Grossman might be at this stage of his career, the Tribune asked a handful of current defensive players, assistant coaches and front-office executives around the league with the help of teams’ public-relations staffs, writers in other NFL cities and phone interviews.
Not everyone interviewed wanted to be identified, so only those willing to attach their names to their opinions were quoted.
The list included Pro Bowl defensive players Aaron Kampman of the Packers, Will Smith of the Saints, Ronde Barber of the Buccaneers and Sam Madison of the Giants.
The main talking points of the dozen or so people interviewed broke the key issues confronting Grossman into five questions.
1. Can he limit mistakes?
Without a doubt, Grossman’s decision-making represents the part of his game where he can afford the most growth and a weakness opponents count on exploiting, according to many who have played against him.
Grossman tends to become most error-prone when he begins to lock in on receivers, neglect the check-down option or force a pass he thinks he can strong-arm into an impossible spot.
“That’s probably his biggest weakness, if I had to give him one,” Barber said. “That comes with time, it comes with maturity and that’s a matter of experience. The guy has a strong arm. It’s just sometimes he seems a little out of sorts. But it doesn’t mean he lacks control of the offense.”
Kampman agreed that “there are times his decisions aren’t that good, and that would probably be something he would be striving to improve.”
The Saints’ Smith described some of Grossman’s bad mistakes as “irrational decisions.”
“He’ll force a lot of passes,” Smith said. “If you can get a lot of pressure on him, typically he makes a lot of mistakes. If you don’t get any pressure on him and you give him all day, he’s going to find the guy and he’s going to make plays.”
That could go for most NFL quarterbacks. But for Grossman to avoid throws one executive referred to as “bone-headed,” he needs to reduce the number of poor throws that combine bad mechanics with bad decision-making. According to STATS, 38 percent of Grossman’s 218 incompletions were the result of poor throws. That’s Brett Favre territory, which is a wild place to be for a quarterback. Favre had poor throws on 39 percent of his incompletions.
Drew Brees, company Grossman should want to keep when it comes to accuracy, had only 23 percent of his incompletions attributed to poor throws.
The addition of some offensive weapons in Grossman’s third year in Ron Turner’s offense should help Grossman become more accurate and reach his goal of a 60 percent completion rate.
2. Can he make the big play?
One statistic Grossman’s critics often overlook: He had 47 completions of 20 yards or longer last season, and only six NFL quarterbacks had more. More than anything, Grossman’s ability to make big plays explains Lovie Smith’s devotion to him.
His method isn’t always pretty and often is unorthodox, but Grossman has earned respect around the league as a quarterback who is a threat to produce a scoring play from any spot on the field. One opponent compared him to a young Favre in that way.
“He floats the ball, but he gets it there,” Madison said. “Sometimes the quarterback takes a bad rap because of the routes the guys are running, but he has been effective.”
Added Barber: “He is very good at moving around in the pocket. He just has to take that pressure off himself and use his skills because he has some talent.”
Former Bears cornerback Jerry Azumah, who retired in 2006 and is now an analyst for Comcast SportsNet, practiced against Grossman for three seasons. He believes Grossman’s talent surfaces most when he allows the game to slow down.
“Rex is a rhythm guy,” Azumah said. “Once he gets into a rhythm, he’s very productive and doesn’t make as many mistakes. But he needs to get behind the running game early, use the play-action passes and safe three-step drops to establish rhythm and confidence. And then … boom.”
3. Can he keep his composure?
As confident and as in command as Grossman looked for most of preseason, it will be hard for him to outlive the words of John Teerlinck. The Colts’ defensive line coach famously characterized Grossman as scared, according to an NFL Films documentary of Super Bowl XLI. One NFL executive described Grossman as “a nervous kid.”
An opinion like that about a young quarterback can spread through the league faster than a trade rumor. The word “rattle” came up from four different sources in discussing Grossman, a reputation he will have to outgrow to reach his potential.
“I guess the plan of attack for him is you want to get after him early, rattle him,” Smith said of the way the Saints approached Grossman in the NFC championship game.
Madison remembered the Giants’ defensive game plan last November was based in part on expecting Grossman to lose his poise.
“We felt if we could get to him and rattle him, it would be to our benefit because of the way he releases the ball,” Madison said. “He uses his body to really step into the ball and throw it, so we wanted to get people around him and get him to use his arm, which is not the strongest. Don’t let him step into it. That was one of our main focuses.”
Teams will continue to harass Grossman until he improves his pocket presence and avoids errors such as bobbled snaps that appear to be symptoms of a jittery quarterback, one executive said. That makes sense against Grossman, according to Azumah.
“You can knock him off rhythm so that there’s a good chance of him messing up,” Azumah said. “That comes with experience.”
The experience of 2006 — often an ordeal given the amount of scrutiny applied to Grossman — can only help him this year, most believe.
“It’s all about handling adversity,” Azumah said. “Last year when he became Bad Rex, usually Bad Rex stayed and you weren’t going to see Good Rex. This year he has to show the ability to get out of that hole.”
4. Can he stay healthy?
He has started 20 straight games, so it’s easy to forget that Grossman’s biggest concern a year ago this time was lasting an entire season. It remains a big enough concern that the Bears factored it into the decision to wait before offering a contract extension. Durability can be as important a trait as accuracy for a quarterback, especially one with Grossman’s health history trying to start every game in back-to-back seasons for the first time.
5. Can he win?
Forget all the Dow Jones-sounding game-by-game statistics. Overlook any physical shortcomings or questions about poise. Grossman has gone 19-8 as an NFL starter, including the postseason, and that he-just-wins factor cannot be discounted. His passer rating of 73.2 in the 2006 postseason was higher than five Pro Bowl quarterbacks also in playoffs, including Peyton Manning.
If the Bears continue to win as much as expected in ’07 and Grossman keeps taking the snaps, his winning percentage as a starter could hover around .750 by the end of this year.
“He’s a competitor, and one of his greatest strengths is he will compete every week, every play,” Kampman said.
Azumah called Grossman a “good leader” who doesn’t have to say too much sharing a locker room with a vocal, veteran offensive line.
Barber admired all that Grossman had overcome, on and off the field, to put himself back at the helm of a Super Bowl contender.
“He’s been in a tough situation,” Barber said. “They’ve been talking about somebody else since he got there, since he got hurt.”
Will they be talking about Grossman as a “franchise quarterback” at the end of this season if the Bears are as good as expected?
“I don’t want to use the term ‘franchise quarterback’ because there are very few of those, but is Grossman a guy the Bears can invest in, grow with and win with? Absolutely,” said Charlie Casserly, an NFL executive of 29 seasons who is now an analyst for CBS’ “NFL Today.”
Casserly, at the time the GM of the Houston Texans, remembers evaluating Grossman favorably coming out of Florida as “a streaky guy” prone to some inconsistency. He noted not much has changed.
“Still, there’s more positive than negative,” Casserly said. “You have to keep things in perspective when it comes to Grossman. In the big picture, he is still a relatively inexperienced quarterback, and a rush to judgment about him would be premature.”
Sunday in San Diego, the clock will start ticking on the Bears’ judgment of Grossman.
“The Bears should be happy they have Rex Grossman playing quarterback,” Casserly said. “He’s a winner.”
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dhaugh@tribune.com
