Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith is a smart guy, but these days he’s being given credit for decisions he didn’t make. For instance, the decision to stick with Rex Grossman as the Bears quarterback. All year long, Chicago fans and press have been arguing that Grossman should be replaced as the starting QB. Smith resisted the arguments and now, with the Bears headed for the Super Bowl, it looks as if Smith made the right choice after all.

In truth, though, there was no choice to make. Grossman is a bad passer — or at least, he is at best mediocre, finishing the season ranked 24th by the NFL’s byzantine passer rating system — but it wasn’t as if Smith could wave his hands to the bench and send in Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana as a replacement. The best the Bears had available was Brian Griese, a 31-year-old journeyman whose career numbers are scarcely better than Grossman’s this season. Smith’s only option was to stick with Grossman and hope that the Bears defense could carry him.

But will Rex Grossman be, as many are claiming, the worst quarterback ever to play in a Super Bowl? The question has no meaning if we go by career records, as did a Daily News feature last Wednesday. First of all, Grossman hasn’t had enough of a career (2006 was his fourth season) for such a comparison to be meaningful, and there are great quarterbacks whose career numbers don’t look all that great. For instance, Joe Namath at his peak might have been the best passer ever, but his career numbers are underwhelming.

The question only has meaning if we compare quarterbacks on the basis of the seasons they went to the Super Bowl. Phrased another way: Was Rex Grossman’s 2006 season the worst of any quarterback’s ever to play in the Super Bowl? Grossman threw 480 times last year for 3,193 yards, a 6.65 yards per pass average, and 23 TDs against 20 interceptions.

Let’s compare Grossman with the leading competition for Worst Super Bowl QB:

Joe Kapp, 1969, Minnesota Vikings. Kapp passed for just 1,706 yards but had a respectable 7.3 yards per throw and an okay TD-to-interception rate of 19–13. Kapp’s Vikings got stuffed in the Super Bowl by Kansas City, 23–7.

Terry Bradshaw, 1974, Pittsburgh Steelers. Later, Bradshaw would develop into a great and one of the greatest of postseason quarterbacks. In 1974 he was dreadful, completing just 67 of 148 passes for 785 yards and a horrendous 5.3 YPP and 7 TDs against 8 interceptions. Fortunately for the Steelers, like the Bears this year, they were able to coast to and through the Super Bowl against Minnesota on the strength of their defense.

Though history has forgotten, Joe Gilliam, who lost his job as the Steelers’ starter to Bradshaw, was a much better passer that season with 1,204 yards, 6.9 YPP, and 8 TDs-4 INTs.

Craig Morton, 1977, Denver Broncos. The much-maligned Morton wasn’t bad in ’77, passing for 1,929 yards and a 7.6 average with 14 TDs and 8 INT. Lost to history is the fact that in ’77, at least, Morton was as good a passer as his Cowboy opponent, the great Roger Staubach. But Staubach’s Cowboys had the better defense and won 27–10.

Vince Ferragamo, 1979, Los Angeles Rams. Ferragamo’s name has pretty much become a joke among NFL history buffs, and it’s true he had just 5 TD passes to 10 interceptions that season, throwing for only 778 yards. But Ferragamo was just a backup who started near the end of the year only because first-stringer Pay Haden broke a finger. The Steelers beat the Rams 31–19.

David Woodley, 1982, Miami Dolphins. There’s no getting around it: Woodley was one of the worst ever to make it to the big game, passing for only 1,080 yards with a dreadful 6.03 average and 5 TDs and 8 Ints. Obviously the ’82 Dolphins went to the Super Bowl on the strength of their killer D, but it wasn’t enough. They lost to the Washington Redskins 27–17.

Drew Bledsoe, 1996, New England Patriots. One of Bill Parcells’s great achievements was going to the Super Bowl with a quarterback as undistinguished as Drew Bledsoe, whose numbers are fairly similar to Rex Grossman’s this year: 4,086 yards but a only 6.56 YPP average. He did have 27 TDs against 15 interceptions. That the Pats only lost to Brett Favre and the Packers 35–21 was another remarkable achievement.

Kerry Collins, 2000, New York Giants. Kerry Collins should just have gone out on the field with the word “Mediocre” stitched to the back of his uniform. He had 3,610 yards, but just a 6.8 YPP average, though his TD-INT ratio, 22–13, wasn’t bad. The Giants were trounced 34–7 by the Baltimore Ravens,

Trent Dilfer, 2000, Baltimore Ravens. Truly the 2001 Super Bowl matched the two most perfectly ordinary quarterbacks in the game’s history. Dilfer threw fewer passes than the Ravens other QB, Tony Banks, 225 to 274. But Dilfer had a better YPP, 6.7 to Banks’ 5.8, so by the end of the season, he was Baltimore’s starter. He wound up with a measly 12 TDs against 11 interceptions. Normally, those would be the stats of a quarterback whose team had a .500 record, but Dilfer was lucky to play offense on a team with one of the great defenses of all time.

Brad Johnson, 2002, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Like Dilfer, Johnson played QB for a team with a truly great defense. Unlike Dilfer, Johnson made some small contributions: 3,049 yards passing, 6.8 YPP, and, best of all, a TD-INT ratio of 22–6.

Whose season was the worst? Undoubtedly it was Terry Bradshaw ‘s in 1974, though David Woodley in 1982 gave him a run for his money. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on Grossman. After all, he plays for a team that hasn’t had a great quarterback since Sid Luckman hung up his spikes 56 years ago. By the standards of ’74 Bradshaw and ’82 Woodley, Rex Grossman in 2006 was … well, Peyton Manning in 2006.

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”