Ryan Grant could be a sneaky great addition for the Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders signed Ryan Grant to a one-year deal on Wednesday, and he could turn out to be a sneaky good addition in 2019.

It’s no secret that I’m a Colts and Raiders fan – I always say the Colts are my wife, but the Raiders are my girlfriend – so when I heard the Raiders were signing Ryan Grant I knew they got a very underrated player.

When the Colts signed Ryan Grant last year my first thought was “who?” But that “who?” quickly changed to “Woah!”

While his 2018 stats didn’t light up the scoreboard – only 334 yards on 35 receptions and 1 touchdown – it was watching those catches that really drew my attention. I first watched Grant play in a home preseason game against the 49ers where he only caught 1 ball for 17 yards, but man, that was an incredible catch.

It was thrown behind him and he caught it with one hand on a 3rd and 12 over the middle and got rocked by a linebacker. However, he held on to the ball and the Colts went on to score a field goal.

In week 1 against the Bengals, he caught 8 passes for 59 yards and 3 of them were on third down and launched the Colts on scoring drives. What surprises me the most about Grant is his ability to get open in tight spaces and how underused he was in the Andrew Luck lead offense.

However, with the addition of Antonio Brown and Tyrell Williams, this leaves plenty of room for Grant to get open.

In week 2 he went 2 catches for 30 yards and you guessed it, both on third down and 1 leading to a scoring drive. Catch a trend? In fact, 23 of his 35 passes caught last year were on third down. 12 of his 35 passes last year launched the team into a scoring drive after a third-down conversion.

Ryan Grant was one of the most valuable players on the Colts last year and the Raiders got him this season. While the details of his contract weren’t released on the official team site, one can make the connection that he was signed at killer value.

Let’s hope Ryan Grant can make as much of an impact for the Raiders as he did for the Colts.