Chris Greisen doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

The 34-year-old quarterback’s jagged path through the pro football universe is on the verge of nearing its end, but he may be winding down in the place where his talents set him apart.

This is his turf — a 50-yard offensive paradise.

The former Northwest Missouri State All-American is back in his home state and is one of the stars in the revamped Arena Football League. Greisen, a Berlin, Wis. native, powers the Milwaukee Iron, a former AFL2 team that now plays in the top indoor football league following the dissolution of the original AFL.

“Once arena football’s in your blood, it’s tough to get it out,” said Greisen, the signal-caller for Northwest’s 1998 national championship team. “I felt like had at least one more year I could do this.”

Greisen drew interest from several teams to resume his indoor career this season after the league’s resurrection, but the chance to potentially finish his career in the state where it began trumped them all.

“The greatest thing is I get to play in front of my family,” Greisen said. “I live in Green Bay so before that meant me traveling to Texas or Georgia for six months and living here for six months.”

Like most of his indoor-ball contemporaries, Greisen missed the 2009 season after the old AFL folded but is back in top form with a league highs in several passing categories.

Only the league isn’t the same.

Greisen sat ready to extend his $100,000-per-year contract with the Georgia Force during the week the 21-year-old league decided to close up shop in August 2009. He now makes $16,000 under the new regime.

“You certainly can’t depend on arena football as your main job,” Greisen said. “It has to be a secondary thing. Before, you could make it your full-time job.”

With the exception of each team’s three franchise players, who earn $1,000 per game, new-era Arena players make $400 a game, which drove away many stars of the previous period. All players are under one-year contracts.

“It’s still competitive, and there’s still some good players. But it’s not the overall quantity you had before,” Greisen said. “The depth isn’t there. We’re missing some all-time great players; players who would still be playing. But to say it’s not still a great game is not doing it justice.”

Greisen is one of eight Milwaukee players with NFL experience, including defensive end Khreem Smith, who caught on with the Kansas City Chiefs and dressed for three games at the end of the 2007 season.

Iron coach Bob Landsee sees more dedication from the current players who are willing to play for so little and said most are using this season as a showcase in hopes of landing in the now-far greener pastures of outdoor football.

“It shows their true love of this game,” Landsee said. “What these people are doing says a lot for them. This is an opportunity for a lot of these guys to get back into the game. That’s what they’re looking for.”

In Greisen’s return to indoor action in April, he divvied out nine touchdown passes while throwing no interceptions, and he made the most of Milwaukee’s only national television appearance against the Utah Blaze in May. Greisen threw six touchdown passes and connected with top wideout Nate Forse for a game-winning two-point conversion in overtime to give the Iron a 56-55 win on the NFL Network.

“I can’t really give a description as to how important he’s been. He’s the guy everybody depends on. He’s the guy that brings everybody on the same page,” Landsee said.

Arena’s single-season record-holder in touchdown passes and completion percentage (117, 74 percent; 2007) leads the AFL with 103 TD tosses.

“The big thing for me this year is not forcing balls into coverage,” he said. “I’ve been hitting a lot of check-downs. I’ve also got four playmaking wide receivers.”

Greisen’s two standout seasons with the Force in 2007 and 2008 earned him a job with the United Football League’s Florida Tuskers backing up Brooks Bollinger. The UFL’s inaugural season that ended with the 6-0 Tuskers losing in the championship game was Greisen’s first outdoor action in six years.

Greisen, who last played 100-yard football in 2003 with NFL Europe’s Rhein (Germany) Fire after his three-year run with the Arizona Cardinals, re-worked his dropback from the simpler arena mechanics.

“I really enjoy arena football so I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it’s easier,” he said. “There’s always a guy in motion; there’s always places to go with the ball. In the outdoor game you’re not always going to have that. You’ve got to move with the ball more. In arena, it’s 1, 2, 3 and the ball’s out.”

He earned $35,000 for his time in Florida and plans to return to the five-team league this fall.

Greisen’s current salary does force him to work other jobs, but both are football-related. He runs the Chris Greisen Quarterback Academy where he tutors aspiring quarterbacks at the high school and middle school level, and he has a weekly one-hour spot on a football talk show on an Appleton, Wis., radio station.

The Iron are 10-5 under Greisen’s guidance — tied for first place the National Conference’s Midwest division — and fighting for a playoff spot with just one game remaining.

“If it wasn’t for my family I probably wouldn’t be playing for $16,000 a year,” Greisen said. “If I couldn’t be with them, it wouldn’t be worth it.”

Sam Robinson can be reached at sam.robinson@newspressnow.com.