Practice squad players seek opportunity

Andre Brown isn't going to the game in Green Bay Sunday. But Ryan Grant will be there, and that's all the hope Brown needs right now.

Grant was a former practice-squad player for the Giants -- a role that Brown filled this season -- and he's emerged as one of Green Bay's top running backs. He was a starter until he was injured last season and he's split time with James Starks this season, but Grant has become one of the pots of gold at the end of the practice- squad rainbow for those who toil in anonymity at the Timex Performance Center.

"I stare at him," Brown said. "I look at him a lot. I look at his situation, not to give up and to keep fighting. I see that hard work will pay off."

It's an odd existence on the practice squad. All guts, no glory. Some players last the entire season with the same team, as Brown and Christian Hopkins and Adrian Tracy have for the Giants this season. Others come and go the way quarterback Ryan Perrilloux has, being cut and re-signed on a weekly basis because the Giants see something in him but need help in other areas on the practice field. Perrilloux is the rare practice-squad player who doesn't practice.

Then there are the ones who make it. Such as Grant, for whom the Packers traded at the start of the 2007 season. Or D.J. Ware, the Giants' current third-string running back, who was taken from the Jets' practice squad in 2007.

"You're pretty much the runts of the team," said Giants starting tight end Jake Ballard, who was on the practice squad in 2010. "You do all the dirty work. It can be annoying at times because you're busting your ---- in practice every day just to stay there and you don't get any glory. You're not even in the team picture. It's tough."

So why do it? For the opportunity to be the next Ballard. The next Grant. The next Arian Foster. The next . . . Jim Cordle?

Yes, even Cordle -- who rarely plays -- considers his journey from last season's practice squad a triumph.

"You definitely look up to guys who go on to succeed," he said. "For me to come up and stay on, it's incredible."

Brown said running backs coach Jerald Ingram was the one who told him to check out Grant's history.

"When [he] told me I was on the practice squad, he told me to keep fighting; that's what Ryan did," he said. "Take every rep. Make this a learning experience. That's what Ryan did."

Brown, who was a fourth-round pick of the Giants in 2009 but had a left Achilles tendon injury end his season, received some interest from NFL teams in recent months. He said that when Knowshon Moreno tore his right ACL in November, the Broncos called. And when Mark Ingram had season-ending toe surgery earlier this month, the Saints inquired. But Brown turned them down. He is comfortable in the Giants' system and he has an eye toward next season.

"Everybody has their own story," he said. "Hopefully next year will be the Andre Brown story."