Piranhas’ Grieb Gets Mixed Signals

ORANGE — Last Saturday night, Piranha quarterback Mark Grieb passed for a franchise-record eight touchdowns and tied another team mark with 361 passing yards.

His reward? On Tuesday morning, Piranha Coach Mike Hohensee traded one of its best receivers for San Jose’s John Kaleo, one of the Arena Football League’s best quarterbacks.

When he heard the news, Grieb was understandably more than a little confused.

“At the time, I wasn’t really expecting it,” Grieb said. “I had just had a career day.

“Coach has got to do what he’s got to do. With Lee [Williamson] down, I think he wants to bring in another quarterback to be ready to play.”

Or perhaps, he wants to bring in a quarterback who can win a game. Despite Grieb’s heroics last Saturday, the Piranhas lost to Nashville, which got nine touchdown passes from Andy Kelly in a 68-62 victory, and dropped to 1-6.

“Mark has been playing well, but we still haven’t won,” Hohensee said. “You can only last so long that way. We can all only last so long that way. We’re looking for a winning combination, somehow. I’m not saying Mark’s not it, I’m just saying we need to look at other people too.”

Grieb, a rookie from UC Davis who broke former New York Jet quarterback Ken O’Brien’s school single-season passing record last season, was the Piranhas’ starter Friday night in a 41-40 loss at Orlando, but was injured in the first quarter.

“This [the trade] doesn’t change what I have to do,” Grieb said. “It’s a matter of me focusing on what I have to do to make myself better. If I spent my time looking over my shoulder, I wouldn’t be in this position to begin with. I also think it makes you better when you have competition.”

When the Piranhas started camp in April, Grieb was an unknown quantity and he was the No. 3 quarterback at best. Hohensee’s opinion of him was based solely on a videotape he received from UC Davis Coach Bob Biggs. By the end of camp, he had passed Williamson and was a strong No. 2 behind Ron Lopez.

That’s about the time the Piranhas’ version of the quarterback shuffle began. Lopez lost his starting job after a week to Grieb, regained it in Week 3 and then was waived. Grieb started in the fourth and fifth weeks. Williamson, who left camp before the opener after being told he was backing up Lopez, returned started in Week 6 but he suffered in the first half and was replaced by Grieb, who has started in the seventh and eighth weeks.

“A lot of stuff has happened,” Grieb said. “It’s kind of like a soap opera. In some senses, it’s bad, because we’ve had so much controversy and we haven’t had much security at quarterback. For me, it’s been good. I’ve shown that I can play in this league.”

He also has shown Hohensee some mental toughness.

“Not too much rattles him,” Hohensee said. “He realizes he’s in the learning process.”

Hohensee, a former Arena League quarterback who played collegiately at Minnesota, said he sees a lot of himself in Grieb, an athletic, 6-foot-2, 205 pounder.

“He throws well on the run, he has a nice release and a good arm,” Hohensee said. “He’s me, with height. I think he can be a great quarterback in this league.”

Grieb had his eye on another league--the NFL, but he wasn’t able to attract the attention of any NFL scouts.

“I wasn’t sure about this league, but my coach [Biggs] said, ‘It’s an opportunity to get paid for something you love to do,’ ” Grieb said, “He said, ‘It’s a different kind of game, but it’s still football.’ ”

The rules are a little screwy, the field is cut in half and there are nets in the back of the end zone, but still, the object is to score.

“It’s a lot faster game,” Grieb said. “It really helps to be able to move. Sometimes, you’ll have three guys standing in front of you and you need to run to in order to get a lane to throw. A lot of times, a guy is open but you can’t see him.

“In college, you usually take your drop and throw on time and in rhythm to a receiver. This game is often about throwing off balance and off your back foot. In the NFL, you wouldn’t think about throwing off your back foot and trying to throw across the field. But in this league, you can do that because you don’t have to throw as far.”

In the fall, Grieb will begin his graduate work in immunology at UCLA. Until then, he will study quarterbacking in Arena Football. Whether he will learn from the sidelines or from watching Kaleo will be up to Hohensee.

“My job was never safe at Davis either,” Grieb said. “They brought this guy in there that was supposed to be the second coming but I beat him out. This is just like that. If I’m not playing well, I’m probably not going to be playing.”