"No one with the Green Bay Packers has said a word to running back Ryan Grant about him needing to pick up his game a notch this season.

But one could see how the addition of veteran Ahman Green and the return to health of Brandon Jackson might send a message that it's time for him to have, oh, say, a 27-carry, 148-yard, one-touchdown performance a week before the Packers play one of the most important games of the season.

If that message was being sent, Grant said after his outstanding day against the lowly Cleveland Browns on Sunday, he hadn't received it. He maintained this was something building up in his system that happened to cut loose at the right time.

"I don't know if it was necessarily (that)," Grant said. "I would say I was excited in general. It's not about a competition. I was the biggest advocate for (Green) to come here. I'm all for what he brings to the table. Anything he can do for me, I can use."

Grant's 148-yard outburst was the third biggest of his career, surpassed only by a 201-yard day against Seattle in the 2007 playoffs and a 156-yard day against Oakland on Dec. 9 of the same year. It also was his first 100-yard day of the season and featured his longest run - 37 yards - since the season opener against Minnesota last year (57 yards).

Grant got the ball early and often as the Packers tried to take advantage of Cleveland's 30th-ranked run defense, which had been weakened even further because of an outbreak of the flu this past week. Unlike previous weeks, Grant ran through arm tackles, drove the pile and bounced inside zone plays outside for sizable gains.

"He ran hard, he had his pads down, he protected the football well, and made a couple guys miss," offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said. "My guess is when we go back and look at those long runs he had, we're going to see that maybe there was a linebacker or a safety who had an arm out or hand out or grabbed an ankle, but he ran through some of those."

All totaled, the Packers ran 41 times for 202 yards, the most they've run the ball in 56 games under coach Mike McCarthy and the most overall since attempting 47 in the season opener against Carolina in 2004."