Bears' Griese moving up stats charts

This quarterback has the most completions (nine) of 25 yards or longer in back-to-back games at any time this season. He also has the highest average per game (3.3) of 25-yard completions.<font size="2"><font size="2"> </font></font>

<p align="justify">Peyton Manning? Tom Brady? Brett Favre? Jon Kitna?

<p align="justify">Try Brian Griese, Chicago Bears.

<p align="justify">Griese has 10 completions of more than 25 yards this season, which ranks him tied for seventh in the NFL and only five behind leader Tony Romo of Dallas. His five such completions, to five different receivers, on Sunday against Minnesota were the most in a game by a Bear since Jim Miller had six Nov. 21, 1999, against San Diego.

<p align="justify">Chicago has scored at least 27 points in each of Griese's three starts since he replaced the ineffective Rex Grossman. The negative? The Bears dropped two of those games.

<p align="justify">Since Griese took over, Chicago has found the tight ends and increased the number of players with touchdown catches to six, which matches last year's total. Granted, a lot of those numbers came because the team trailed in the fourth quarter. But Griese has shown an ability to give the team a chance to overcome late large leads, which does wonders for a team's psyche.

<p align="justify">"He's made good progress," said offensive coordinator Ron Turner. "He's making good decisions; he made some big plays the other game that were huge for us that gave us a chance."

<p align="justify">Said wideout Bernard Berrian: "He's a veteran, so there's not much he doesn't know about the game. We're making strides, and that's the good thing about it."

<p align="justify">The strides are coming in big chunks of yardage. Griese connected on scoring plays of 81 yards to Devin Hester, 39 to Berrian and 33 to Muhammad against Minnesota.

<p align="justify">"We've been noticing - what's been missing from the offense is the big plays," Berrian said. "We're trying to get those implemented back in.

<p align="justify">Fifteen-play drives are a hard thing to do in the NFL. We need a big play here or there to help us out."

<p align="justify">Griese talked about becoming more aggressive after the Viking game, saying you just need to do more good than bad in the long run.

<p align="justify">Short term, it hasn't been pretty.

<p align="justify">"We've got to stop turning the ball over - that's the biggest thing," Turner said.

<p align="justify">Chicago had four turnovers to none for the Vikings, leaving the Bears 30th in the league at minus-7 in turnover ratio.

<p align="justify">Looking at the positives, the Bears will try to maintain, or build, on their offensive momentum.

<p align="justify">"We'll keep coming out, running the ball, distributing the ball to different people and mixing up the running game with the passing game," Turner said. "We'll just continue to improve and take another step."

<p align="justify">The progress has come because the Bears have started taking advantage of different mismatches, said guard Ruben Brown.

<p align="justify">"It's just starting to come together," he said. "We plan to be physical and aggressive at the beginning of every game. But sometimes what they do, how things start out, cause us to take a different course.

<p align="justify">"After watching the (Minnesota) film, we kind of feel we have made some improvements. Are they enough? Obviously, we only have two wins. It hasn't been enough, but we have seen progress."

<p align="justify">Despite the passing success, head coach Lovie Smith still calls running back Cedric Benson "our work horse."

<p align="justify">"We've been feeding him the football. You get to the second half (of games) and you have to look ... it's not about how many times we've given the ball to Cedric, can we get him going. It's about trying to win the game. Then youget behind and it changes it a little more.

<p align="justify">"Cedric Benson has gotten better each week. He was better this past week.

<p align="justify">Will we try to get him involved more? Yes. We like to be in charge of a game where we can stay with our running game throughout it. Eventually, we'll get to that."

<p align="justify">Benson sat out 20 straight offensive snaps beginning early in the second quarter Sunday.

<p align="justify">Smith wanted to give former Northern Illinois star Garrett Wolfe some work, and Adrian Peterson - Chicago's - was in for the two-minute offense and third downs in that stretch.

<p align="justify">Regardless of who lines up where, the offense seems to be in a position to have to bail out the defense at the moment.

<p align="justify">"This is a team game, and historically here in Chicago, at least since I've been here, the defense has had to pick up for the offense," Griese said. "So however that plays out, we hope going into every game, we hope that both sides, all three phases of the game plays well.

<p align="justify">"But if one side is struggling, the other side has to be able to help pick it up and score more points. That's how we approach it on offense, trying to get an attitude on offense where we're winning games and not just managing games and not trying to lose games, but actually going out and being aggressive and taking it to the defense."

<p align="left">Reed Schreck is the NFL writer for the Rockford Register Star. Contact him at 815-987-1381 or rschreck@rrstar.com