Green Bay - It's looking more and more as if Brett Favre got the last laugh on the Green Bay Packers in at least one regard. [img_r]http://www.pongalong.com/Beerblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ryan_grant.jpg[/img_r]
The furor created by Favre's return to football in early August was a contributing factor why the club would go against its own successful business principles and cave in during negotiations with Ryan Grant.
With each passing week, Grant is demonstrating that he's not a difference-maker at running back and shouldn't even be a featured ball carrier. And every time that Grant goes nowhere, the Packers are kicking themselves for misevaluating one of their own players and compounding the error by negotiating his contract extension under pressure.
Bubba Franks in 2005. Robert Ferguson in 2004. Cletidus Hunt in 2003. Bernardo Harris in 2001. Antonio Freeman and George Koonce in 1999.
They represent the precious few mistakes made by the Packers over the last decade in terms of deciding which of their own players deserved lucrative extensions. The Packers owe much of their sustained run of winning to their success in this area.
Then Favre and the media circus came to town three months ago, and it's almost as if the front office went brain-dead in its dealings with Grant.
Grant should understand that much of his four-year, $18 million extension, which could swell to about $30 million based on an extraordinary incentive package, is the result of Favre. Last year, Favre minimized the attention defenses could bring to Grant which, in turn, artificially inflated his rushing statistics. This year, the Packers gave in at the bargaining table when Grant's agent delivered a diatribe in the media and eventually reached the conclusion that a two-front conflict was too much to withstand.
Presently, Grant ranks 17th among running backs in average salary per year at $4.5 million.
Last week, two executives in personnel for NFC teams took ample time to compare Grant one-on-one against other running backs. According to one scout, Grant ranks 45th. According to the other, Grant ranks 50th.
"He's not in a special class," said Will Lewis, the Seattle Seahawks' director of pro personnel who was not one of the aforementioned two scouts. "He does what he does, which is run hard and give everything he's got. Sometimes that's enough, sometimes it's not against pretty good defenses. I don't think he's a dominant runner."
Through seven games, the Packers obviously aren't getting anywhere close to the production they expected from Grant.
Certainly, the situation could improve, especially late in the season when the Packers annually run the ball better. Grant won't be 26 until December, he missed the exhibition season with a hamstring injury and his starting experience is just the equivalent of one full season.
But Grant also appears limited in several critical areas, including run skill, quickness, balance and elusiveness. Those are the factors separating top backs from ordinary ones.
"Running backs, you know about them right away," one of the two NFC scouts said. "It's vision and instincts. Look how they got him. He was the No. 5 guy in New York. That's the reason why."
Despite the fact Grant was three years removed from unrestricted free agency, the Packers decided that asking him to play for the $370,000 exclusive-rights tender this year wasn't right.
In his position as vice president in charge of player finance, Russ Ball researched the situation and reported back to general manager Ted Thompson. They offered Grant a long-term deal with about $4.5 million in the first two years and an incentive package starting at 1,250 yards.
Training camp opened July 27, but Grant stayed home. At the same time, the showdown between Favre and the Packers intensified.
As the week played out, Favre eventually flew into Green Bay on Sunday night, Aug. 3. The Packers had gotten serious with Grant the day before, and agreement was reached late on Aug. 2 after six hours of talks between agent Alan Herman and Ball.
Not only did Grant get almost double what the Packers had been offering in the first two years, the trigger point for his incentive package dropped to a more attainable 1,000 yards.
Ball must be held at least partially responsible for the deal, his first major negotiation in Green Bay, because he did the talking with Herman. But the decision to up the ante so significantly rests primarily on Thompson.
"Any time running backs come in and they seem like they got you over a barrel, teams tend to cave in," one of the two NFC personnel men said. "I just didn't understand why they did it so early. They outperformed their contract, and you want to make them happy. But why not get to the halfway point of the year and then we'll talk? Let's just make sure."
But with the heat from Favre scorching Thompson & Co., the organization felt trapped and decided it was impossible to deal with overwhelming negativity on two fronts. Often labeled as "cheap" for their salary-cap surplus, the Packers deluded themselves into thinking they knew for sure how good Grant was, lost their poise and decided just to pay somebody.
Grant and Herman made off with millions more than the Packers' evaluation had led them to offer back when Favre was retired and their thinking was clear.
Fortunately for the Packers, they have a safety valve. If they don't like Grant anymore than they do now, he can easily be released.
If Grant plays 16 games this season, he'll be paid $4.25 million. Last year, the Packers got him for the bargain-basement sum of $310,000.
Grant is due a $2.5 million roster bonus in mid-March. His base salary in 2009 is just $750,000, but it would swell by $500,000 if he gains 1,000 yards this year, by $1.5 million if he gains 1,250 yards and by $2.5 million if he gains 1,500 yards.
Because of their advantageous cap situation, the Packers didn't have to give Grant a signing bonus. If they were to cut him before mid-March, it is believed that their cap responsibility for Grant would end immediately.
In other words, no harm, no foul. They would have paid Grant a total of $4.56 million to have him in their backfield for two years, there would be no cap penalties and they'd have to draft, trade for or sign another back.
Plus, Kregg Lumpkin, Brandon Jackson and DeShawn Wynn would still be around. Grant, who was behind Julius Jones and Darius Walker in his final two seasons at Notre Dame, has no better background than theirs. Who's to say they might not be as good as Grant given his opportunity?
One-year wonders abound at the position, particularly in the Denver zone scheme that produced Olandis Gary (1,159 yards in 1999, 839 in his last five seasons) and Tatum Bell (1,025 in '06, now out of football).
Some other backs who flashed for one season were Charles White and Cleveland Gary with the Rams during the John Robinson era, Rashaan Salaam as a rookie with Chicago in 1995 and Michael Bennett with Minnesota in 2002.
Even when Grant was ripping off 100-yard games down the stretch last season, some personnel people never warmed to his ability level. One scout kept saying that defenses totally were geared to stop Favre, and that the threat of the play-action pass kept safeties out of the box. Plus, defensive coordinators hadn't had time to really study him.
Certainly, Grant did have some wide, wide lanes through which to run. And run he did, breaking free for 15 carries of 20 yards or more.
Grant clocked 40 yards in 4.43 seconds at the combine in 2005. For a big man, speed probably is his best attribute.