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Should Seattle be Afraid of Ryan Grant?

You know, I don't know. I've spent the last 90 minutes attempting to figure that out and have drawn 0s. I've read that he's a downhill rusher and a cutback rusher. He was an outside rusher when he started but now works well between the tackles. He looks like Dorsey Levens and Deuce McCallister. He was on academic probation at Notre Dame and was a straight "A" student at Notre Dame. It's a lot of confusion and hogwash, really. In my very brief exposure to Grant I noticed he's tall, runs upright and may have some injury/fumble problems down the line. I'm not a fan of player to player comparisons, but I thought Grant looked a bit like Chris Brown of the Titans. He seemed to be a very good slasher, but not exceptional at breaking/avoiding tackles in the open field. The Hawks were very successful against Brown in 2005 with a very similarly designed defense, for whatever that's worth.

From a scouting standpoint, an upright slasher with some injury concerns is a pretty ideal running back matchup for the Hawks. The Hawks are ferocious tacklers that don't allow a lot of room between bodies for slashing types to exploit. But, then, that's on pretty limited viewing. If Grant is a cutback rusher, he certainly could give the Hawks trouble. We all know that Seattle is at its weakest when caught in over-pursuit. That's the Hawks style, gang-tackles, bodies on the ball-carrier, shoot the gaps and rely on your teammates to clean up your mistakes. That's also one of the reasons Seattle allows a lot of 10+ yard rushing plays. 24% of all runs, to be exact, 30th in the NFL. The Pack rushing attack creates runs of 10+ yard on 27% of all plays, 3rd in the NFL. That's not promising, for sure, but it's also not Grant. Grant first started in week 8, since that contest he's only rushed for 10 or more yards on 15% of all runs. Still, if Grant, who possesses 4.43/40 speed, gets into Seattle's third level he should have little trouble zipping past Brian Russell for the score.

Perhaps this post is a waste of time. It certainly doesn't come to any firm conclusions. I felt compelled to address Grant, but without knowing exactly what type of rusher he is, I can only say he's been highly productive (16.8% DVOA) in 188 runs, and may have the skill-set necessary to exploit Seattle's sometimes over-aggressive defense. Or he may just fumble all over Lambeau, get broken in two and be the latest in a long string of rushers hurt and disposed of by the Hawks heavy hitters.