Dating back to last season, Rex Grossman has now played in 13 straight quarters without an injury—his longest streak since the beginning of the 2004 season. A stretch of game time longer than what his back-up Brian Griese could have ever imagined when he signed his five-year contract in March. It appears Griese is planning to take matters into his own hands.
Griese was seen at a local tavern near the Bears’ Lake Forest training facility Monday night with former starting quarterback, Kyle Orton. The two were suspiciously dressed, Griese, all in black with sunglasses and Orton, in cut-off jean shorts, a t-shirt with holes and his signature neck beard. Witnesses say the two were equipped with a roll of blueprints, a briefcase and were overheard talking about “taking care of number eight.”
“I didn’t come here to watch this guy screw up a Super Bowl-caliber team.” Griese reportedly said to Orton. “And you won nine games last year, only to get benched in favor of him. Lovie insists on starting him, despite his poor play. We have to take care of number 8. Do you have any ideas?”
“Uhhh, we could make the football explode,” Orton said as he took a drink of beer. Then he thought hard, before knocking back a shot of whiskey, “Or we could rig the breaks on his car.”
Griese thought Orton’s ideas were extreme.
“Good Lord, man! We don’t want to kill him!” said Griese, shaking his head. “You not only still play like a rookie, you think like one too. We need something that nobody would suspect.”
The savvy vet was then seen unrolling the blueprints across the bar. He made a couple notes, looked around, and then stuck his index finger into Orton’s forehead with three quick jabs. Griese took out a small index card, wrote something down and passed it to his partner in crime before wrapping up the documents and leaving the bar.
Witnesses say the night ended with Orton closing the bar at 2 am, remaining on the same bar stool for five hours, during which he downed eight shots and a dozen beers.
“Griese got up ticked off about something and Kyle was very quiet all night,” a witness said. “He just kept telling the bartender to ‘get him another.'”
