Green Bay Packers: 50 greatest players in franchise history

Greatest players in Green Bay Packers history: 28. Jordy Nelson

Okay, this one still stings a bit. After 10 great years with the Packers, wide receiver Jordy Nelson now plays for the Silver and Black in Oakland. The Oakland Raiders may end up getting the back-end of Nelson’s prime, but the Packers certainly got the most out of his selection. Green Bay used a high second-round pick to take Nelson out of Kansas State in the 2008 NFL Draft.

Nelson would join the Packers in the beginning of the Aaron Rodgers era in Green Bay. So it was only natural that this duo would build a great rapport in the years to come. While Nelson wasn’t anything more than a marginal receiver in his first few years in the league, he really came into his own during that 2010 Super Bowl run and the following 2011 NFL season.

Year four in the league saw Nelson breakout in a big way with 68 catches for 1,263 yards and 15 touchdowns. This helped the Packers go 15-1 that season, but it didn’t result in back-to-back Super Bowl championships for The Pack. After falling back to earth a bit in 2012, Nelson would rattle off three more 1,000-yard receiving seasons in a four-year span from 2013 to 2016. Keep in mind that Nelson missed the entire 2015 NFL season due to torn ACL suffered in the preseason.

To date Nelson’s best season was in 2014, where he made his lone trip to the Pro Bowl. He set career highs in catches (98) and in receiving yardage (1,519), while recording 13 touchdowns. Nelson also had the most touchdown grabs in 2016 with 14. Though Rodgers did get hurt in 2017, Nelson’s productivity fell off a cliff with only 482 receiving yards. It’ll be interesting to see how the Raiders chapter of his NFL career unfolds. Maybe he does return to the Packers one day before he retires?