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Brian David Griese ( ; born March 18, 1975) is an American professional football coach and former player who was most recently the quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). A former quarterback in the NFL, he played college football for the Michigan Wolverines and was selected by the Denver Broncos in the third round of the 1998 NFL draft.
Griese played three seasons at the University of Michigan, leading the Wolverines to win the 1997 national championship. After being selected in the third round by the Denver Broncos in the 1998 NFL draft, he earned a Super Bowl ring with the Broncos in his rookie season, as a backup to John Elway in Super Bowl XXXIII. Elway retired after the Super Bowl and Griese became the starting quarterback for the Broncos during the 1999 season. Griese was a Pro Bowl selection with the Broncos in 2000. After leaving the Broncos he started at quarterback for the Miami Dolphins (5 games in 2003), Chicago Bears (13 games in 2006 and 2007) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (21 games in 2004, 2005, 2008). He is the son of Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese. Griese is a former color commentator for Monday Night Football on ESPN.
At the beginning of the 1996 season, Dreisbach regained his starting job and Griese returned to the bench, serving as the team's Quick kick. However, after Dreisbach struggled, Griese replaced him at halftime against Ohio State, where he led the Wolverines to another upset victory over the Buckeyes, 13–9. Griese finished the season starting in a 17–14 loss to Alabama in the Outback Bowl.
In 1997, Griese remained the starter. Along with Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson, he led the Wolverines to an undefeated season and a share of the national championship. Griese was selected as the MVP of the 1998 Rose Bowl, passing for 251 yards and three touchdowns in Michigan's win over Washington State.
In his Michigan career, Griese had a 17–5 record as a starter. The Wolverines won all three games against Ohio State in which he quarterbacked. He was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame on December 30, 2012.
Griese consistently completed a high percentage of his passes. He has had four seasons with a better than 64% completion rate, including one year (2004) when he completed 69.3% of his passes. Nevertheless, he was unable to establish himself as one of the elite quarterbacks of the league, due to injuries and a penchant for interceptions. He was released by the Broncos, following the 2002 season, and was replaced by former Cardinals starter Jake Plummer.
On October 16, 2005 during a week six matchup against the Maimi Dolphins, Griese suffered a season ending knee injury. Griese helped them to their only victories in 2004 with a 97.5 QB rating and to a 5–1 record in 2005 before succumbing to a torn ACL. Griese was cut by the Buccaneers in 2006 after the injury to his knee in order to free up money for the salary cap.
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After signing with the Bears, Griese saw limited action. Though he fared better than Rex Grossman during the 2006 preseason, coach Lovie Smith decided to keep Griese as the Bears’ second-string quarterback. He took late fourth quarter snaps at the end of major victories. Though Grossman started every Bears game in the 2006 season, Smith allowed Griese some extended gametime during week fifteen, after the Bears had clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. In a game against the Detroit Lions, Griese completed six of nine passes for 51 yards, which set up several game-winning Robbie Gould field goals. Smith called on Griese to relieve a struggling Grossman for the second half of the final regular season game against the Green Bay Packers. However, Griese did not fare a lot better, completing 5 of 15 passes for 124 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. While some Chicagoans questioned Grossman's ability to lead the Bears to the Super Bowl, Smith stood by Grossman, and declared him the team's starter throughout the playoffs. The Bears went on to win the 2006 NFC Championship, but lost Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts.
After Grossman struggled during the first three outings of the 2007 Chicago Bears season, Smith turned to Griese to lead the team. In his first outing as a Bears starter, Griese threw two touchdowns and three interceptions in a losing effort against the Detroit Lions. NFL Game Center: Box Score – Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions – 2007 4 The next week, he led the Bears on a game-winning drive against the Philadelphia Eagles, in which he called the plays due to a headset failure. Griese lost the starting job to Grossman after sustaining an injury against the Oakland Raiders during week ten. Grossman's late TD pass leads Bears past Raiders 17-6 - NFL - Yahoo! Sports Griese again replaced Grossman later in the season, after Grossman sustained a knee injury against the Washington Redskins. However, with the Bears out of the playoffs, Kyle Orton started the remaining 3 games of the season.
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From 2020 to 2022, Griese joined the booth for Monday Night Football, working alongside Steve Levy and Louis Riddick.
On February 26, 2025, it was announced that Griese had left San Francisco's coaching staff in order to spend more time with his family.
Griese is founder and board president of Judi's House, a children's grief support center in Denver, Colorado. Brian's mother, Judi Griese, succumbed to a six year battle with breast cancer and passed when Brian was 12. The grieving process was hard for Brian, and so he established Judi's House to serve grieving children in the Denver area.Roger Lucas Savage. " Three unlikely friends unite for a greater good.", Your Business at Home Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 1, January 2008, p. 56
He also helped establish what would become the Griese, Hutchinson and Woodson Champions for Children's Hearts golf weekend in May 2007. The event benefited the capital campaign for construction of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital as well as the Michigan Congenital Heart Center (MCHC) which resides within Mott. He also remains involved with the From the Heart Organization, a relationship that dates back to his playing days in Ann Arbor when he would visit Mott every week.
For his work with Judi's House, Griese was awarded the 2011 Patterson Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy, presented each year by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which celebrates and promotes the selfless service of people within the world of sports. He was named the recipient of the Big Ten's Dungy-Thompson Humanitarian Award in 2014, and the Big Ten's Ford-Kinnick Leadership Award in 2015, becoming the first individual to be recognized with both of the conference's annual awards. These awards recognize Big Ten football players that have achieved success in the areas of leadership and humanitarianism after their college careers have ended.
Brian and his father, Bob Griese, became the first father-and-son duo in NFL history to both win a Super Bowl. Brian and his father wrote a book together, Undefeated (), published in 2000 about their lives through their undefeated seasons and living through the breast cancer illness and death of Brian's mother and Bob's first wife, Judi.
Griese married Brook McClintic, a clinical psychologist, in 2004 in Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands. The couple met while Griese was playing for the Broncos. The couple have two children together.
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