CHICAGO — OK, we get it, Brian Griese. You were excited about playing your former team. You wanted to beat the Chicago Bears very badly.

Very, very badly.

But 67 passes? That's a Madden '09 session fueled by Red Bull.

Griese bounced back from three interceptions and a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to lead Tampa Bay to a 27-24 overtime victory Sunday. His arm should be listed as improbable.

"I can't lie to you guys," he said. "The game meant a lot to me personally coming back. But at the end of the game, it was all about our team winning."

The Bears were about to cut Griese in the off-season when they found a taker in the Buccaneers. He doesn't seem bitter about it, just very aware of what happened to him.

Very, very aware.

"I was traded, so obviously they didn't need me," he said.

The Bears' vaunted defense had a 10-point lead with about 6 1/2 minutes left in regulation and lost it. You can blame it on fatigue if you want, though Tampa Bay's players also were dealing with the heat and abundance of snaps. You can blame it on the boneheaded unnecessary-roughness penalty on Bears cornerback Charles Tillman in overtime if you want. You know what? Go ahead and blame it on Tillman.

But don't forget to give credit to Griese, who was at his best while leading the Bucs to a field goal and a touchdown to send the game into overtime. Tampa Bay went into its two-minute drill, and the Bears looked worn out or lost or both. In overtime, he hit Antonio Bryant with a beautifully timed 38-yard pass to set up Matt Bryant's game-winning field goal.

Most 33-year-old quarterbacks would need a hydraulic device to lift their arms off the ground after throwing 67 passes. But Griese had a lot going for him Sunday. The Bears didn't sack him once. Toward the end, the defense played as conservatively as a hockey mom with lipstick.

And did we mention Griese was motivated? Afterward, his teammates said he took lots of satisfaction in what he had accomplished.

"Had to, had to," tight end Jerramy Stevens said. "I think that's why he manned up so big. He had that bit of extra juice coming back. It had to be huge for him. I know he wanted this win."

Griese said he called some plays down the stretch, with the rest coming through his headset from Bucs coach Jon Gruden. You might recall the Bears' victory last season over Philadelphia, when Griese told reporters he had called the plays on the game-winning drive, only to say curiously the next day that he hadn't. It's doubtful Gruden will feel compelled to steal Griese's thunder.

"He's a guy that is as cool and calm as anybody I've ever been around," Gruden said. "He doesn't come unglued. He doesn't get rattled."

Fans and media were curious whether Griese would have a competitive advantage against the Bears, having played for the franchise the previous two years. Griese called it a tie, saying Bears' defenders knew him just as well as he knew them.

But who knew they'd go to pieces when it mattered?

Griese completed 38 of 67 passes for 407 yards. Ridiculous numbers. Warren Buffett numbers, if Buffett traded in football stock.

But the numbers that count are the 10 points he helped get for his team late in the fourth Quarter. He was 13 of 22 for 137 yards on those two drives. Then came overtime, Tillman's meltdown while "protecting" one of his teammates and the last few shovels of dirt tossed on the Bears at Soldier Field.

As dumb as the Bears looked, that's how smart Griese looked. As undisciplined as players from both teams looked in a fight-marred game, that's how composed Griese looked.

Let's avoid saying the Bears never should have let Griese go. It's not as if he set the world on fire in his two seasons in Chicago, though Sunday's game certainly raised the possibility that the Bears didn't know how to use him properly.

But it's painfully obvious this franchise is no closer to a quarterback solution than it was five or 10 or 20 years ago.

And it's even more obvious that the Bears' defense lost this game. At least Kyle Orton got stronger as the game went on. The defense either ran out of gas or decided it didn't want to pay $4 a gallon.

The NFL record for passes in a game is 70 by New England's Drew Bledsoe in 1994.

"I know this: It's not a recipe for success in the long run," Griese said of his day as the mad passer.

But in the short run, it tasted good to Griese. It might even have tasted like revenge.