| Griese's finding his comfort zone Miami's new QB adjusting to the offense BY JASON COLE [email protected] NASHVILLE - Brian Griese is starting to feel at home. Griese took a big step Friday in learning the Dolphins offense. By his own assessment, he started to feel ''comfortable'' for the first time as the Dolphins took on the Tennessee Titans in joint practices. ''Today, he had a real good feel for what we're doing, and today was the best we've protected him,'' offensive coordinator Norv Turner said. ``You could see that he sees everything so well.'' This was the closest thing to live action Griese has seen since joining the Dolphins in June, but he did well. There were some yips -- a screen pass lobbed over Charlie Rogers' head during the morning practice -- but by the close of practice, Griese had made a sharp transition. He hit three consecutive passes at one point: finding running back Robert Edwards in the flat when everything else was covered; threading a quick slant to receiver Sam Simmons; and ending with a solid blitz read for a completion to receiver Chris Jackson. Suddenly, all the new terms made sense. Sort of like his days at Miami's Columbus High when he would go to a friend's house for dinner. The friend's parents often spoke only Spanish. ''I took [Spanish] in school, but you really don't learn it in school. You learn it because you are at somebody's house and you want to eat and that's how you get the food,'' Griese said with a smile. Learning takes time, and Griese didn't start until mid-June. That's one reason it's unrealistic to think Griese will unseat Jay Fiedler for the starting job anytime soon. ''I think it's a typical example,'' coach Dave Wannstedt said. ``I don't care if it's Junior Seau or Brian Griese or whoever. With a veteran player, everybody assumes that the guy has been in the league, he's got it. There is a learning process. You change jobs and you're doing the same thing, but the structure of how it's done is a little different. He's working through that.'' But practices such as the two Friday against Tennessee help a lot. Today's scrimmage will also accelerate the learning process -- call it Griese's own immersion program. ''With the base offense, there were things that I definitely feel more comfortable with,'' Griese said of his work Friday. ``We've installed pretty much the whole base offense, and now we're redoing everything that we put in. ``That's what we did today. It's our second time through it. It made more sense to me. The concepts flash into my mind when I hear the play call. Now, I know in my mind what my guy is going to do, so I can go up there and read the coverage, read the blitz. I can read the defense.'' There are, of course, many more situations and nuances to learn, but Griese has shown excellent study habits. ''Brian knows how to prepare, how to study,'' Turner said. 'He puts in the time to make sure he knows it. Again, you'd say, `Doesn't everybody do that?' No, they don't. It ends up being the difference in how far you can go.'' Part of learning is forgetting Denver's language. Griese is trying not to use the Broncos' offensive terminology to interpret what he's doing with the Dolphins. It can be too confusing. 'I try not to do that because you get into problems, like when a word is used that is in both offenses. The word `scat' in this offense is totally different than the word 'scat' in Denver,'' Griese said. Once again, Griese is trying to borrow from his boyhood days in South Florida. 'When you're learning Spanish and you say the word casa, that means house. But are you thinking of the word `house' or the actual house? I have to think of the actual house and not the word `house'.'' |