With Bolton dealing with ‘tricky’ injury, Packers add an inside linebacker

The Packers, however, didn't add a veteran starter to their weakened inside linebacker corps.

With Curtis Bolton sidelined definitely with a knee injury, the Green Bay Packers added some desperately needed inside linebacker depth on Sunday.

The Packers didn’t get a proven performer, let alone an immediate starter, though. Rather, they added a journeyman when they claimed Nicholas Grigsby off waivers from the Baltimore Ravens.

Grigsby spent a little more than three weeks with the Ravens. In 28 snaps in two preseason games, he recorded one assisted tackle.

He’ll have a golden opportunity to do what he’s been unable to do in his NFL career: find a home and start a game. That’s because Bolton, an undrafted rookie who had put himself in position to replace injured starter Oren Burks, suffered a knee injury on Thursday against Oakland.

“I have no idea,” Bolton said of what the injury is and the timetable for his return. “I just know that my knee got banged up. They’ve got to go through my scans. I learn some things one day and the next day it’s something different. The doctors are still trying to figure it out. I’ve got a tricky case. I know as much as you know.”

Bolton wasn’t on crutches in the locker room on Sunday and he didn’t believe the injury was a torn ACL.

“It looked super-terrible the day of the game but, going back, it’s not as bad as what it is but we’re still not sure the extent of it,” he said. “It’s a complicated process. A lot of the stuff, I’m getting mixed results with what the doctors are saying. They’re just trying to be safe and make sure I’m 100 percent able to get back out on the field.”

Grigsby went undrafted out of Pittsburgh in 2016 and was signed by the Los Angeles Rams, for whom he spent the final six weeks of his rookie season on the active roster. The Rams cut him at the end of training camp in 2017, and Grigsby wound up playing five games for the Patriots in 2017 and nine games for the Patriots in 2018 before he was released. He landed with Detroit, playing three games for the Lions at the end of last season.

In 23 total games, he has zero starts and made 15 tackles on defense and eight more on special teams.

“Work. You just have to continue to work,” Grigsby said after signing with New England in 2017. “They say ‘work when no one is looking’ and how that really adds up. Whether it’s positive or negative, just continue to work and stay the path that you’re on and good things will come.”

As a first-time starter as a senior at Pittsburgh in 2015, he had 66 tackles and was third-team all-ACC. A big-time athlete, he ran a 4.47 in the 40 with a 36.5-inch vertical at Pitt’s pro day.