Grant deal inching closer

[bobblehead]

No harm JH, like I said we have been pretty close on our ideas on how it should be handled.

And I agree with what sharpe says to a limited extent. Way back when the offers were tendered I remember thinking "man with all the room under the cap they should just offer him and bigby a flat 1 mill as a good faith gesture." I posted as much on the old JS site.

I still feel that way kinda, but then you gotta think about repurcussions. What happens if 3 years from now we are up against the number and we have a couple undrafted FA's have really good years? We might not be able to offer them more than the minimum then you got a situation because they will hold out citing past situations. If we cave on Grant now, what happens if Muir has 8 sacks this year. I'm not against paying guys who have earned it, but I really wish Grant had signed the tender, put in 10 games and then politely requested a long term deal.

[sharpe1027]

If we cave on Grant now, what happens if Muir has 8 sacks this year.

What happens? They pay the man, unless they think it was a fluke. Good pass rusing DEs are hard to find.

[bobblehead]

And if we have his exclusive rights, have put time and capital into developing him but don't have any more cap room than is necessary to hold his exclusive rights??

[sharpe1027]

And if we have his exclusive rights, have put time and capital into developing him but don't have any more cap room than is necessary to hold his exclusive rights??

Then they would have done a crap job of managing their cap. Maybe you haven't noticed how ever since TT showed up, that hasn't even been a remote issue?

Time and capital? As in, they did their job? I guess they should be spending half their income paying back all the colleges that have spent time and capital on the players they have now? Besides, they would have gotten 8 sacks out of him the year before as a payoff for their time and capital.

Not to mention that your hypo is is Apples to Oranges. They have the cap room now. I'm not a mind-reader, but common sense tells me that if Grant and his agent knew that they had absolutely zero cap room this would have been handled differently.

You have a point, I just think it is only a minor issue, if at all. Pay the man and move on.

[TennesseePackerBacker]

Just in case anyone wants a reminder of Grant's ability to burst through the line, cut back and turn on the jets, here's a pretty good highlight vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi4NTC8S8nE

Kinda gets you ready for some football.

Damn that really gets me ready for football season. I was at the bar the other night and all that was on was women's softball and MLS soccer

[BallHawk]

Just in case anyone wants a reminder of Grant's ability to burst through the line, cut back and turn on the jets, here's a pretty good highlight vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi4NTC8S8nE

Kinda gets you ready for some football.

Great video. Had to mute the sound though.

[Farley Face]

Just in case anyone wants a reminder of Grant's ability to burst through the line, cut back and turn on the jets, here's a pretty good highlight vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi4NTC8S8nE

Kinda gets you ready for some football.

Thanks Vince, that got the juices flowing.

[vince]

Not a lot new in this article from NFL.com, but its a national perspective, and hey, its about Ryan Grant, so here's a link and a couple stanzas of the more interesting stuff...

http://www.nfl.com/news/story;jsessionid=3CA2D3D44491C5D7308F894513BEB003?id=09000d5d80893f06&template=with-video&confirm=true

Packers depending on Grant to keep them in the running

...

Surely you remember that snowy Saturday night a little more than four months ago. Grant lost a fumble on his first carry against Seattle, and another on his third. Four minutes into the game, the Packers trailed, 14-0.

Teammates rallied to Grant. McCarthy said he never considered pulling him. Brett Favre told Grant to forget the fumbles, in somewhat more earthy language. Grant still has not forgotten them, but he did make up for them. He went on to rush for 201 yards -- a Green Bay playoff record -- and three touchdowns as the Packers won the game, 42-20.

"Quite frankly, when you screw up like that on national TV, it takes courage to go back out there," said Ted Thompson, the Packers' general manager. McCarthy called the post-fumble performance "remarkable," particularly in the conditions. Said Thompson: "You couldn't see him at times when he was running, because it was snowing so hard."

Grant says he did it by staying "true to myself," not changing his running style, and not running tentative or scared.

"It wasn't the first time I've made a mistake on the football field since I was a little kid, and it won't be the last time," he said.

"That game didn't start the way I wanted it to. My NFL career didn't start the way I would like it to. There are going to be trials and tribulations, and the way you deal with them is going to show up in the end. You've got to keep moving forward. I take what I do very seriously."

...

Grant was a feel-good story during the 2007 season. He spent his rookie season in 2005 on the Giants' practice squad and his second year on injured reserve. When, just before the season opener last September, the Packers dealt for him, Grant didn't know what to expect. For that matter, neither did the Packers.

"My number one thought was, for a team to trade for you at that point, they have to want your services, so I took it as a good thing," he said. Actually, what the Packers wanted at that point was just a healthy body. They got that, and more.

Grant gave the running game what McCarthy called "a shot in the arm" during the season, averaging 5.1 yards a rush, third best in the league among players who averaged at least 10 carries a game. But it wasn't until the playoffs that Grant really established himself, both with his performance and his demeanor after those two lost fumbles.

"That tells a lot about him as a person," McCarthy said.

The emergence of Grant may have been a surprise to many, but not to Grant, who said, "The only surprise, maybe, is . . . how fast it came on, but not by the level of performance." "Did we envision him becoming the lead guy and sort of a dominant player among that group (of young backs)? Probably not right away," Thompson said. "But we felt like he had that kind of ability."

The Packers like their stable of young backs, particularly now that they are all healthy again. And if they liked what Grant showed them in January, they really like what he's showing them now. Although Grant is unsigned, but is not a free agent (the Packers hold his exclusive rights), he has been working out regularly at the team's facility, taking part in meetings and conditioning drills, and doing everything but the on-field work in the OTA program.

Both sides expect a contract to be worked out in advance of training camp, which begins July 28.

Veteran NFL writer Ira Miller is a regular contributor to NFL.com.

[vince]

I'm predicting a fairly big year 6 salary that is waivable cuz it allows RG to "save face" and get bigger number while not really exposing the team. Also, 7 million in year 6 of this deal may indeed be a bargain at that time.

TT hasn't been a guy to backload contracts like you're predicting here bobblehead, even if the expectation is that he might cut him or renegotiate at that point as you're suggesting. And even though $6 mil may be a relative bargain in six years, I would predict a more evenly distributed contract from year over year, with more money upfront than you're suggesting and smaller increases as the years progress - without a big, inconsistent increase from any one year to another...

His philosophy has been to stay with a pay-as-you-go structure and avoid being put into a position where a player (Mike Wahle) has to be restructured or cut because of a backloaded contract structure that could become out of whack with the player's projected valuet...

Obviously, we'll see how it plays out, most likely just prior to training camp.

[bobblehead]

All I can say is its a good thing for RG he came back big in that seattle game.

Also, the stellar performance in the championship game outta prove he deserves a long tem deal....where were the highlights of that game anyway??

OK, calm down, i'm mostly kidding, but the point is he disappeared, which is why I am in favor of being a little tough with him and making sure the packers get something as well.