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Rumors of Ron Turner's uselessness have been greatly exaggerated. That was the message from Brian Griese yesterday. Many observers, including our own Michael David Smith, noted Griese was calling his own plays after his headset went out on Sunday's 97-yard, game-winning drive.

Many of the plays were called at the line and, as in any hurry-up situation, the quarterback is responsible for reading the defense and choosing those plays. Those plays are always going to come from a list of plays chosen specifically for the two-minute drill by the offensive coordinator. When the clock stops normally he'll get the radio call from his coordinator and that's what was missing on Sunday. Griese says that he was still getting the signals from quarterback coach Pep Hamilton on the sidelines.

"I could see his lips. I caught a little bit of the play and then I figured out the formation and got it in.''

Before the touchdown pass to Mushin Muhammed, Griese actually went close enough to hear Hamilton on the sideline. He also said a key 25-yard completion to Bernard Berrian came after he pieced together the call from Hamilton. Griese said he spoke up after his comments on Sunday created the impression that he was solely responsible for the play calls.

''Unfortunately, the audio in my helmet went out right before that drive,'' Griese said Sunday. ''Or you can look at it as fortunately it went out. However you want to put it, but I felt really good calling my plays in that situation.''

He was playing a different tune on Monday.

"It was a complete effort from our coaching staff calling those big plays. And those guys deserve the credit.''

That clears that up but it's strange that the Bears are so concerned with who gets credit for what instead of just celebrating their most impressive offensive drive in some time. It's not quite on par with John Elway in Cleveland, perhaps, but it should be something for them to hang their hat on going forward not something that creates dissension in the ranks. After all, it wasn't as if Griese was drawing up plays with a stick in the dirt. Every play comes from Turner's playbook and Griese was smart enough to choose the right ones at the right time and smart enough to work around the loss of communication in his helmet. That's what we call a win-win and what the Bears should be content to call a big road win.