Associated Press

Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman manages a small smile as he is surrounded by media during a news conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center Monday in Miami Beach, Fla. The Bears will take on the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI Sunday in Miami.

Grossman faces his first blitz

Bears QB handles Miami media rush

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

By Gene Chamberlain

Copley News Service

When the Bears' quarterback faced a media blitz for the first time at Super Bowl XLI Monday, he held his ground nicely, and tipped his cap to coach Lovie Smith for providing support through tough times this season.

"I think in any situation as a quarterback you're under fire, and I don't care who you are," Grossman said. "It's a position that just comes with it. The ball's in your hand every single play, so you're the guy that people look at.

"It pretty much goes head coach and quarterback, so that's a responsibility that I have taken on. I know it comes with the territory, but it's also great to have a head coach that understands that and sticks by you and has a lot of confidence in your abilities even if you may not be playing up to your best. He knows that eventually you're going to snap out of it and be a great quarterback, and that's what he's told me all year."

Grossman has been the focus of some stories calling him the worst Super Bowl quarterback in history - a claim probably lacking merit considering David Woodley, Trent Dilfer and Jeff Hostetler took teams to the big game. Grossman's relative youth and inexperience make it difficult to place him in that group. So if the Bears win the Lombardi Trophy Sunday, will he finally be established in the eyes of fans and media as Chicago's quarterback?

"I would hope that a world championship would do that," Grossman said. Grossman's five games with a passer rating of less than 39.0 and seven with a passer rating of 100 or higher have made it easy to paint him as an extremist.

"I would love to play more consistent so that they know what to expect," Grossman said. "Everyone knows what to expect. I know that I can do that.

"In my first full season, I had about 12 games, including the playoffs, that I'm real proud of and about five or six that I'm really not proud of at all. They were bad. I need to work on those six games, but I'm happy about where I am at. I'm at the Super Bowl and I've had 12 great games. I still feel like I've had a good season."

Toss out the meaningless regular-season finale against Green Bay when Grossman threw three interceptions and caused controversy by saying he didn't really focus on the task at hand, and he actually comes into the Super Bowl on a roll. In games 13-15 and the two playoff contests, Grossman is 94-of-177 for 1,162 yards with seven touchdown passes and one interception.

Wide receiver Bernard Berrian has developed a knack for the big plays in postseason with Grossman. He has 15 postseason catches in three games.

"We definitely have a chemistry going," Berrian said. "When the play is called, he gets the right reads going. If we've got the matchup, he's going to try and take it (deep)."

Berrian sees other qualities in Grossman's play that critics miss.

"He commands the offense, he leads the offense and he tries to run the offense with great efficiency," Berrian said. "He tries to do the things that the coaches are teaching him and telling him to do."

The great burning issue in Sunday's game, however, is the discrepancy between Colts perennial All-Pro quarterback Peyton Manning and Grossman.

Manning has thrown six playoff interceptions to Grossman's one this year, and has a lower playoff passer rating (75.1 to 71.9).

"We've had a chance to prepare ourselves for this," Smith said. "He has to deal with this (criticism) just about every week. I haven't talked to Rex a lot about it. He's a professional.

"He knows that most of you (reporters) have certain questions that you want to ask him, that most of you would like to let him know exactly just how bad he is and things like that, but he's not going to buy into it. We don't buy into it.

"Rex Grossman is here at the Super Bowl. The reason for that is he is a good player. As far as comparing him to Peyton Manning, you can compare very few players to Peyton Manning, but Rex and Peyton are not the only two guys playing. We liked him leading our team, which he has done very well all year."

Grossman leads the team, but he didn't mind jumping on their shoulders with his explanation of how the Bears can beat a team led by a certain Hall of Famer like Manning.

"I see it as a team effort," Grossman said. "All year we've played great on offense, our defense has been spectacular and our special teams have been solid.

"We have a great team and it's going to take a whole team effort to beat the Colts."