Jakeem Grant: The Mighty Ant roars | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Jakeem Grant: The Mighty Ant roars

DKphin

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Jakeem Grant is a short man and a tiny football player at 5-foot-6 and 161 pounds. But the Dolphins rookie sixth-round draft pick roars confidence and spews quotes like a giant.

The Dolphins made many of their rookies available to the media at the start of their rookie minicamp and Grant simply stole the show. He is the most interesting guy in this draft class.
Consider:
Grant's size is an obvious issue. He doesn't run away from it. He runs toward what he sees as a dividend.
"I've definitely heard every joke in the book," Grant said. "I use that as fuel to my fire. You can say I'm short, I'm this, I'm that. But when it all comes down to it, you can't stop me. At the end of the day you can say I need to grow a little more, but dude, I stopped growing in middle school. This is all you're going to get right here. At the end of the day, if it's man to man, I'm going to win the battle."
The narrative is Grant is perhaps (big perhaps) going to be a return specialist in the NFL. Perhaps. Why perhaps?
The size issue, of course:
"That didn't knock me down one bit," Grant said. "That just put a bigger chip on my shoulder. People are saying, 'His career is not going to last too long in the NFL because of his size.' I say, you can't hit what you can't catch...
"I'm here on the big stage and no one believes in me until I put out the playmaking ability. Once I do that, all the critics will be like, 'Ok, now Jakeem is making plays.' I'm going to show the world that size doesn't matter. If you have the heart and the passion to play the game, that's all there is to it."
Whatever Grant lacks in size, he more than makes up in apparent confidence.

"I personally, I would say everything I did in college was special. Not just in the return game or as a receiver. I have to be great at all those things."
"I love doing the impossible."
He says he ran a 10.32 in the 100 meters in high school. The world record is 9.58 for men and 10.49 for women. And Grant wanted to use that speed to break Chris Johnson's 4.24 record at the NFL Combine. Unfortunately, Grant wasn't invited to the Combine. "I wanted to break Chris Johnson's record because he's one of my favorite players," Grant said. "And that 4.24, I told my mom, I'm going to break that record. And letting my mom down, I felt like I let her down because I didn't get invited. I wanted to break that record as bad as I want to be a good football player.

Grant doesn't see himself as a specialist. He says his college team ran plays for him and because Dolphins coach Adam Gase is "an offensive genius" he thinks the Dolphins might draw up some plays for him as his college coach did.

"I do want to play offense," Grant said. "There's a lot of competition there and I'm looking forward to it."

Fine, but if he's on offense occasionally, the thinking is Mighty Ant Grant must be a slot receiver, correct?

"What if you get a 6-3 corner and he wants to put his size on you," Grant explained. "You don't have size. So go with your strengths. Use quickness and technique. Give the illusion you're going somewhere you're not. That's how I feel. Just because I don't have size doesn't mean a 6-3 is just going to come down and jam me up. I'm going to use my strengths to maneuver around him."

"I want to be the best person on the field, it doesn't matter about running back or quarterback, Whatever position I'm at, I want to be the best man on the field. When you look on the field, offense and defense, I want people to say Jakeem Grant, that's the best person on the field."

Grant was at Texas Tech when former Texas Tech linebacker Zach Thomas (heard of him?) came to the school and spoke to the team. The undersized former Texas Tech receiver now with the Dolphins thinks he can pattern himself after the undersized former Texas Tech linebacker who played for the Dolphins.

"One of our Hall of Famers at Texas Tech was Zach Thomas," Grant said. "And knowing he played here, that motivates me to be a Hall of Famer, too. Being here, is a dream come true. Just walking in here and meeting the people, this is a great facility. You can't be at a better place than being right here in Miami."
Click to expand...
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2016/05/jakeem-grant-the-mighty-ant-roars.html

:up:
 
Very special athlete - extremely quick - fast - elusive - good vision -

Spud Webb dunked the Basketball at about that height -

Sproles like -

Barry Sanders was very short too -

Zach Thomas -

Wes Welker

Some guys are just so naturally strong - or fast - or gifted that they defy the mold...

Grant has that look! For the Dolphins sake - for his sake - for my sake - I hope he REALLY GREAT!!!
 
Can't teach or coach confidence.

Gase has plenty of it, and I have a feeling this team will start playing with confidence.

Fun times coming soon for Miamk.
 
Grant is going to be wearing the cursed number 19. Hopefully he can overcome that in addition to the rest of the adversity in his life.
 
My 20 year old tips the scale at 210 and is 6'1". He plays for a United States Premier Hockey League team, I watched him hit a 17 year old that was playing up for the Syracuse team who was 170lbs on the books. The kid was knocked out in the first period with a concussion, i can't believe they let the kid even play up. The size difference is and was just scary to watch. I love the optimism but i think Seatle's STs will put him in the hospital week one if he takes one out of the endzone. I mean, 160 pounds is just mind boggling that we would even consider this kid. It will be fun watching this kid run for his life I guess, best of luck!
 
Damn, that just got me amped.

Love the confidence. I haven't heard any other Dolphins' sixth round pick talk like this. Yes it's talk, but he has a HUGE chip on his shoulder.

Not only is he fast, like Ginn Jr., but his quick twitch is off the charts.

Kid is going to be hard to catch on the field....just hope that he can take the pops when they come.
 
He reminds me of Brandon Banks. Kind of a bobble head.
 
This is who we should have taken instead of this never done before so called huge upside project against all odds pick,. This kid Dadi will be a beast for the chiefs, relentless motor, Nicolas is a project who perhaps projects best at outside linebacker in a 4-3 alignment where we need help! enjoy the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EBIdwQdTBM
 
Mcganiel said:
My 20 year old tips the scale at 210 and is 6'1". He plays for a United States Premier Hockey League team, I watched him hit a 17 year old that was playing up for the Syracuse team who was 170lbs on the books. The kid was knocked out in the first period with a concussion, i can't believe they let the kid even play up. The size difference is and was just scary to watch. I love the optimism but i think Seatle's STs will put him in the hospital week one if he takes one out of the endzone. I mean, 160 pounds is just mind boggling that we would even consider this kid. It will be fun watching this kid run for his life I guess, best of luck!
Click to expand...

Gase saw Trindon Holliday in Denver and saw how good he did, and he's he same size as Grant. So I'd assume that helped a lot to get them to pull the trigger on Grant.

But yeah the weight difference is scary if he were to get hit clean. Really experienced kick returners rarely really get hit clean though.
 
Mcganiel said:
This is who we should have taken instead of this never done before so called huge upside project against all odds pick,. This kid Dadi will be a beast for the chiefs, relentless motor, Nicolas is a project who perhaps projects best at outside linebacker in a 4-3 alignment where we need help! enjoy the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EBIdwQdTBM
Click to expand...

Is he on the roster? Grant is - talk about him.
 
I'm really rooting for his success, but I can't help but think of this scene from the Waterboy:
[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0etQ744o2O4[/video]
 
Anvil35 said:
Is he on the roster? Grant is - talk about him.
Click to expand...
Lol, I did and I stated this was a wasted pick and then added who we should have taken over this Webster character.
showposter.jpg
 
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