[bears9]

PHILADELPHIA -- He was waving his arms frantically and pointing at his helmet. Already without timeouts, already without hope, Brian Griese now was without radio communication. Were the Bears being Belichicked? In a stadium that has enough technological savvy to block ads from appearing on outside web sites in its in-house Internet operation, wasn't this outage a little too fishy?

As it was, he needed to lead a suspect offense 97 yards in 1:52. As it was, he was fighting the blaring noise of a hostile audience in the enclosed end of the field. As it was, he carried the burden of trying to save a teetering season from slipping into a 2-5 death watch. Now, the quarterback couldn't hear the plays.
``Unfortunately, the audio in my helmet went out,'' Griese said.
He paused and smiled. ``Fortunately,'' he said, ``I felt really good calling my own plays in that situation.'' Don't discount the fortuitous significance of that twist of fate, the final weird development on a day when the Bears were handed a laughable series of gifts by the Eagles and, it seems, highly regarded referee Ed Hochuli. Considering how offensive coordinator Ron Turner drives us all to madness, was it not an amazing break that he couldn't get his grubby hands on 10 of the final 11 plays? Also, did you not find it as strange as I did that Turner mentioned nothing afterward about the communication breakdown, talking as if he was centrally involved in the grand plan? And can we assume the Bears were able to pull off quite possibly the most impressive drive of their 87-year existence -- remember, this is the City of Weak Shoulders -- only because the son of a Hall of Fame QB was able to craft his own poised, intelligent strategy unencumbered by sideline interference?

How? Because Griese called plays