Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) illicit; our of one’s ususal area of operations.

2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 140: Van Lindt knew I was way off the NYPD grid on this case, which is why he never asked questions.
2017		S.M. Jones August Snow [ebook] ‘What better way to protect big-ass pallets of off-the-grid cash than to move offshore onshore?’.

(Aus.) facing problems, thus have/place/put on / draw over the gridiron, to subject to severe questioning or criticism.

1888		Tamworth Herald 27 Oct. 8/1: Mr. Goschen was [...] one the feared opponents of the member for Midlothian. He never remembered the right hon. gentleman looking more miserable than when Mr. Goschen was drawing him over the gridiron (laughter and applause).
1889		W. Somerset Free Press : [S]everal parishioners [...] seem bent on making things hot for the parson. They have had him on the gridiron ever since he entered the parish, and no sooner has one special roasting failed to cook him than another has been invented.
1891		Observer (Adelaide) 26 Sept. 37/1: If the German law had prevailed when the Prince of Wales was on the Press Gridiron, several eminent journalists would have been whipped and pilloried, and hanged, and gibbeted.
1901		Quiz (Adelaide) 28 Mar. 4/1: Quiz has had the moral courage to read the various candidates' speeches, and heard many, and he is quite satisfied that the arguments used about Protection and Free Trade will put more souls on the grid than any other topic invented.
1902		Register (Adelaide) 10 Mar. 4/4: [H]is remarks were received with great attention throughout his long examination, and particularly when he was on the grid to the learned K.C.
1905		Observer (Adelaide) 12 Aug. 37/2: Mr. Price was placed on the gridiron over his promises never to sanction the sudden-death motion.
1911		Prahran Teleg. (Vic.) 14 Oct. 3/5: King O’Malley [...] was already on the gridiron, and the time was opportune for the Council to press home its fair and equitable claims.
1915		Sun (Sydney) 2 Nov. 8/2: [W]hen I had finished they asked me questions. The first night I was on the grid for two and a half solid hours.
1917		Referee (Sydney) 17 Jan. 9/3: Edwards at times attacked with almost bulldog ferocity. The Mexican was on the grid-iron and he knew it.
1924		Sydney Sportsman 16 Jan. 4/3: punch on the grid-iron [...] [T]he North Shore artist was on the grid-iron, so to speak, and playing for his place.
1935		Dly News (Perth) 30 Mar. 4/4: [of bridge] North was on the grid! His troubles arose from doubt as to the soundness of the one spade bid by South.
1950		N. Lindsay Dust or Polish 179: I never had such a damned unsettled and unsettling affair with a woman. [...] It’s blody, the way a woman can sustain a situation like this when she knows she’s got a man on the grid. Rita, for Heaven’s sake stop being a bitch.