Grant ready to face former, childhood favorite team
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By JASON WILDE / Lee Newspapers
Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:44 AM CST
GREEN BAY -- Ryan Grant's story would be so much juicier - not better, just more New York tabloid headline-worthy - if the NFL's newest star running back went into Sunday's NFC Championship Game intent on revenge.
Instead, the excitement of facing his former team, the New York Giants, and showing them that they shouldn't have traded him barely is on Grant's mind. What matters more is getting his current team - the Green Bay Packers - to Super Bowl XLII just four months after the Giants traded him for a 2008 sixth-round pick on Sept. 1.
"How can I have a grudge?" Grant said Wednesday. "I'm excited for them, and I'm excited for myself, and I understand how it goes. This is a business and that's how it works. It was nothing personal. There were a lot of things that I learned from there (that) if I didn't learn, I probably wouldn't be in the situation that I'm in today."
And what a situation it is. After rushing for a franchise postseason-record 201 yards and three touchdowns in the Packers' snowy 42-20 NFC divisional playoff victory over Seattle last Saturday - after losing fumbles two of the first three times he touched the ball - Grant's improbable rise to stardom was the story angle Wednesday.
To everyone but him, of course.
"I don't really look at it as 'stardom,'" said Grant, who took over as the Packers' starting running back after a 104-yard performance in relief Oct. 29 at Denver and finished the regular season with 956 yards and five 100-yard games in only seven starts. "I really want people to keep things in perspective. I don't really feel like I've done that much. I'm excited to be a part of the team and I think the team's deserving of the attention that we've gotten."
But the Packers are getting that attention, and are playing in this game, in large part because of Grant's emergence.
Grant, who said the trade was "shocking" to him at first, also knew it was an opportunity. Would-be starter Vernand Morency had missed almost all of training camp with a knee injury, leaving rookies Brandon Jackson and DeShawn Wynn as the top backs. When Wynn suffered a shoulder injury against the Broncos, Grant took over and the Packers' days of running-back-by-committee were over.
"At that point we need to go with one guy. We'd actually decided to go with the DeShawn Wynn for the Denver game, (but) he was injured early in that game, and Ryan Grant was the No. 2," said coach Mike McCarthy, who officially named Grant the starter just minutes after that win. "And we haven't looked back."
Nor has Grant, although it's difficult not to, given the number of questions Grant faced about the serendipity of it all.
"It's funny. Between my family and my friends, who are Giants fans back home, I've got a lot of people saying that for the first time they actually want to see the Giants lose," said Grant, who grew up in Rockland County, N.Y., and attended Don Bosco Prep high school in Ramsey, N.J., about a half-hour drive from the Giants' training facility.
Asked if he thinks the Giants made a mistake letting him go, Grant replied matter-of-factly, "They're in the NFC championship, so I don't think so."
In fact, Grant will only say that playing the Giants adds "a little bit" to his excitement. "Just the game itself and the stage itself, what we're trying to accomplish, is enough energy and enough impact on the game," he said. "It's something special. And I'm not going to take it for granted."
Perhaps that's because Grant knows how close he was to missing all this. He sat out the entire 2006 season after he was out with a few teammates and was bumped, falling at a Manhattan nightclub and putting his left hand through a cluster of champagne glasses - severing an artery, the ulnar nerve and a tendon in his arm. Grant said doctors initially feared he may not play football again, and told him that had he not gotten medical attention when he did, he might've bled to death.
While Grant is reluctant to discuss the incident - he calls it a "freak accident" and said last week that he has a lawsuit pending - he said it did teach him one lesson.
"It wasn't like anything dramatically changed for me. I kind of stayed true to who I was," said Grant, who took real estate classes and helped coach a local high school while he was on the non-football injured reserve list. "I always feel like I've been kind of grounded with the support system that I have, but (it taught me to) just stay true to yourself because you never know what's going to happen."
That support system includes his father, Vincent, who started putting him through running back drills at age 9 and who remains his toughest critic. Because his dad was at Saturday's game, Vincent made an interesting request once he returned home.
"My family's like (a bunch of) coaches, so my father always is very critical on everything," Grant said. "When they're at the games they feel like they don't get a chance to really watch the game, so I have to send film to my uncle and my father, so they can yell at me for what I did wrong."
Grant remains "very close" with a number of Giants - "I felt like some of the guys were calling me before they'd even taken showers after the (Dallas) game," he said - including former roommate and college teammate Justin Tuck and running back mates Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward, Reuben Droughns and Ahmad Bradshaw, whose collective talents made Grant expendable when the Packers contacted the Giants about trading for him.
"We liked Ryan very much and always did. The simple fact of the matter is, we (had) one position where we thought we had five and possibly six players who were NFL-caliber, and that was at running back," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. Asked if the Packers were interested in any of his other backs, Coughlin replied, "No. You would have to ask (general manager) Jerry (Reese), but to my knowledge, they wanted one guy."
And that one guy holds no grudge.
"I'm happy for the guys that they were able to do some things and had a great season. And it's just a great opportunity for me now," Grant said. "I'm happy where I'm at, happy with this organization, happy to be a part of this team."
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