Griese: Job hunt `had nothing to do' with Lance
Brian Griese's new boss, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, recently called him the “smartest football player I've ever been around.”
So, what the heck was going through Griese's mind to enter the NFL coaching ranks, doing so this year as the 49ers' quarterbacks coach?
“I'm just coming here to see if I can be a good football coach,” Griese said Wednesday in his introduction to the 49ers' press corps. “I have a lot of good experiences, a lot of relationships that I've built up over time, and a lot of understanding of the game and how to play it from a quarterback's position.”
The 49ers' new quarterback does not have a lot of experience.
Trey Lance has not been a fulltime starter since 2019, his only collegiate season as such for North Dakota State. He went 1-1 last season as Jimmy Garoppolo's rookie backup, with the win coming in the home finale and playoff push.
Lance's ascent to the starting role in place of Garoppolo is not what Griese said attracted him to the 49ers.
Griese, 47, went so far as to say: “It had nothing to do with Trey.” Rather, he wanted to recapture the thrill of victory and agony of defeat that comes with being on a team.
His old team, ESPN, replaced him in the “Monday Night Football” booth with Fox's long-time tandem of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.
“They got a bigger fish,” Griese acknowledged. “I understand the dynamics of that and I always knew that possibility and likelihood was out there.
“I got to do it at the highest level for two years (on “MNF”) and I loved every minute of it.”
“I don't have an agenda,” Griese said this week. “I'm not trying to get to the next coaching job.”
Griese's first coaching job comes after 13 years as an ESPN analyst, after 11 years as a NFL quarterback for four teams.
He won a Super Bowl as a rookie third-stringer behind John Elway and Gary Kubiak on the 1998 Denver Broncos. They were coached by Mike Shanahan, and Griese spent five seasons in Denver, where he got to know a teenage ballboy named Kyle Shanahan.
“He was the smartest football player I've been around, the way that he prepares, how organized he was, as detailed as a guy I've ever been around,” Kyle Shanahan said at the NFL owners' meetings in March, according to The Athletic's Matt Barrows. “And I thought he was a guy who could bring something different to the quarterback position.”
Griese made the Pro Bowl in 2000 and, three years later, joined the Miami Dolphins, where his dad, Bob Griese, made his Pro Football Hall of Fame mark (196780). The younger Griese bounced to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2004-05, 2008) and the Chicago Bears (2006-07), finishing 45-38 all-time as a starter.