On Monday, the Detroit Lions were scheduled to host free-agent running back Ryan Grant for a visit. Grant reportedly was offered a deal last week, leading many to believe that he could very well end up signing while on his visit with the Lions.
The visit wasn't believed to have actually happened, though. Grant wasn't in Allen Park on Monday, and ESPN's John Clayton confirmed on Tuesday that Grant didn't visit the Lions. Clayton explained that the reason behind the lack of a visit was that Grant and the Lions were too far apart on the money in the contract offer they gave him. Here's what Clayton had to say on ESPN's SportsCenter (via Pro Football Talk):
"It now looks like it will not happen because they could not come to at least a close enough monetary agreement," Clayton said. "To Ryan, it’s not a matter of just the money. Ryan wants to make sure it’s the right situation, as far as, if he has the chance to compete for the starting job, if he does have a chance to compete if he can make the right type of money with that. More so than anything else, they just couldn’t come to at least a close enough money agreement that he would make that trip."
This explains why a visit from Grant never occurred on Monday. In his view, the Lions' offer apparently wasn't enough to make visiting worth his time. Negotiations between the two sides apparently didn't bring them any closer to getting a deal done, thus no visit was held. As I mentioned last week, the Lions aren't going to overpay for a guy like Grant, so as long as he wants a bigger offer, it's probably best for the team to just move on.
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