It's been a rough start for RB Ryan Grant. After a brief holdout, he came into camp and immediately hurt his hamstring. He missed almost the entire preseason, he came in for one play in the last preseason game, and was restricted to 15 carries per game for the first few weeks. Although he still has more fumbles (3) than TD runs (1), he had his first 100 yard game three weeks ago against Indianapolis, and played very well against Tennessee. He looked a lot better at Tennessee last week than at any time this season, and Aaron Schatz at Football Outsiders agreed:
"Ryan Grant also looked good today for Green Bay. He looked like the Grant of last year, with burst and good vision, especially against such a strong defense. Nice "buy low" candidate for the fantasy football second half."
But then I checked out the game log vs. Tennessee. Grant had 20 carries, but 7 of them went for negative yards, no gain, or 1 yard. I would have expected that his frequent lack of production would lead to a lot of 3rd and long situations, followed immediately thereafter by a punt, but actually the Packers only failed to convert on one 3rd down after a bad run on 1st or 2nd down. Two of the big pass plays, a long reception by WR Greg Jennings and another one by WR Donald Driver, both happened shortly after a lousy Grant run.
He's still listed as the 2nd worst running back in the league by Football Outsiders. He won't be the worst RB in the NFL this season because Cincinnati's RB Chris Perry has been twice as bad as Grant. He has been getting better, but he's still holding back the offense more than he has helped, and it makes me wonder what RB Brandon Jackson has to do in order to get more than 4 carries per month.