Green Bay Packers: Five burning questions entering OTAs

How limited is Jordy Nelson?

It’s not just Lacy’s struggle with fitness that hurt the Packers last term. The biggest blow the offense took was in preseason with Jordy Nelson tearing his ACL. The Packers lacked his ability to take the top off a defense and force defenses into more conservative two shell coverages.

Without Nelson, no wideout could shake off press coverage consistently, and this led to cockier coverages from defenses inviting the Packers to throw the football.

If Nelson returns fully healthy, the offense will have the injection of speed it needs, and they will have someone defenses are forced to respect. How close Nelson returns to his 2014-best is worth monitoring, and it all begins at OTAs.

He will likely be limited over the next few weeks in attempt to get fully ready for training camp in July, but seeing his progress will be important for the coaching staff. Will Nelson return without missing a beat, or will the combination of being the wrong side of 30 returning from a serious knee injury affect his game?

We’ll begin to get some clues in OTAs next week, although Nelson will be limited.

Next: A year of development