gonna post this here - i wrote it in the free agency thread but didnt realise how long it would be - feels more appropriate here...
"Ok ive gone and just watched a crap ton of ryan grant film so here's a few things ive noticed:
- He runs some slick routes - he has a nice hybrid of being sharp in his breaks as well as sudden but also having the nouse to find the soft spot and using his body and speed in the right way to get there - one of his more impressive plays was for a 20 yard td but he mostly jogged his way through the zone using slight movements to get himself wide open... that being said he does have a lot of quickness both in short-area burst as some decent looking top end speed (hard to tell how fast but on a few occasions he absolutely swallowed up the cushion of a covering safety and blew past them)
- He's taller than i expected given what i saw on the film - he's 6 ft which isnt huge but he seems to play smaller sometimes when he's running routes - but then he looks bigger when he's blocking in the run game - it's a weird dichotomy that i cant really work out at the moment
- He has good hands
for what ive seen on the film so far he looks a little underused by the redskins but that does make some sense given that they have jamison crowder already there so he was fighting for snaps out of the slot
here are some of my issues with the pickup (mostly systemic rather than the player himself):
- im not in love with the amount of money we've given him - i can see why the ravens targeted him but we are banking on him ascending and continuing his upward trend while probably featuring him more than the redskins did
- which leads me onto my other issue - part of the reason i was hot on moncrief is that he's a larger player out of the slot who's physical moving downfield which is traditionally what the ravens' most successful slot guys have done - we've never really featured inside routes on this offence so schematically i worry that he's a bit of a square peg in a round hole (that being said woodhead and campanaro towards the end of the year were featured more in the passing game in an effective way so maybe there's a more overt philosophy change going on in terms of the type of route concepts we run)
i do kind of wonder whether the ravens are taking a leaf out of the vikings book and realising that you can create an effective passing game out of smaller shifty guys and that you dont necessarily need size (which is inherently more expensive in the nfl)
and harbs wasnt lying i guess when he emphasised that we were gonna go and get guys who can catch the ball - ive only seen 1 drop from grant on the film ive seen so far and it was good defence tbh by the defender who swiped the ball out of his hands as he was bringing it in towards his body as he went to the ground...
this deal could be brilliant - i dont think its as risky as i first thought but there's certainly a decent enough chance that grant could fizzle and underachieve for the amount given his lack of targets and production - based on what ive seen though there's definitely a chance that this could turn into a really good deal
im not happy with the day's work from the ravens but having watched the tape i feel good about the 2 players we've added (even if im not happy with the money)"