A Marauding In Minneapolis: Why the Green Bay Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings
By Kenn Korb
The Nelson Renaissance
All things considered, Jordy Nelson has had a pretty stellar return after missing all of 2015 to a torn ACL.
The likely comeback player of the year had been among the league’s leaders in touchdown catches for most of the season and already gotten beyond 1,000 receiving yards before we even got to this game against Minnesota — quite an accomplishment for a wideout on the wrong side of 30 having to return from a season-long absence.
Still, at times this year it had been painfully obvious he still was not fully back to the player he used to be. We saw flummoxing drops mixed in with an inability to break away from the coverage all too often, and his prior game-changing ability to routinely bust open deep receptions had not returned in more than fleeting flashes.
After this game though, I’m officially ready to say he’s fully returned to that former level.
Nelson put up his best overall game of the season against the Vikings. He put together every positive aspect of his 2016 season and patched on his pre-2015 abilities with it. He caught 9 of 11 passes targeting him, taking those for a season-high 154 yards. He picked up two touchdown catches — one from 21 yards out to start the scoring, another from 2 yards away to pile onto the early lead.
Most importantly to me was his contributions on deep passes. He had the major 60-yarder against the Bears, but while the situations weren’t as dire in this contest his showing against the Vikings is even more impressive in my eyes. He grabbed four different passes that picked up at least 15 yards in this game — three of which jump-started scoring drives for his team as they built an insurmountable lead.
His ability threw off the Vikings in a major way, to the point that reports came out about Minnesota’s defensive backs bucking against their coach’s gameplan to figure out how they should stop him. Apparently what they did didn’t matter much: that was supposedly for only one series at the beginning (Nelson got a 15 yard completion on that drive), and the gameplan they originally went against then saw him pick up nearly all of his yardage and both of his scores in the 28-13 first half lead for Green Bay.
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He may not have made the Pro Bowl, but this performance was more than enough to show Nelson has fully returned to his top-5 receiver form just in time for a winner-takes-all battle for the NFC North in Week 17.