Jordy Nelson's Injury Will Test Packers' WR Youth, Super Bowl Hopes

There are irreplaceable players, and then there are players who would fit under that label if they played for any other team.

We’re about to find out which category Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson falls under after he injured his knee on Sunday. According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport (h/t USA Today's Ryan Wood), the prevailing fear is that Nelson tore his ACL.

Nelson crumpled during the Packers’ Week 2 preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the first quarter of an eventual 24-19 Steelers win, he lined up wide to the right of quarterback Aaron Rodgers and ran a curl route.

Everything that followed looked routine: Rodgers threw a strike, and Nelson elevated to absorb the throw with his hands. He had already gained first-down yardage, but because it's Nelson we’re talking about here, yards after the catch are almost always coming. Nelson's 558 YAC in 2014 placed fifth among all wide receivers, per Pro Football Focus.

But when Nelson landed and pivoted toward the sideline while trying to collect that juicy extra yardage, something went horribly wrong.

It’s always a cruel joke that in a sport filled with brutally jarring, earhole-rearranging contact, often the worst injuries don’t involve any contact at all.

Nelson wasn’t touched by pursuing Steelers cornerback Antwon Blake, whom he had juked to the ground with his usual precise route running. But when Nelson planted on his left leg to accelerate and turn upfield—again, a routine move that's been the foundation of his success—his knee buckled gruesomely.

The reaction was both predictable and typical. Anyone who enjoys watching talented football players do talented things heads for the nearest disaster shelter when someone like Nelson goes down during the meaninglessness of August.

Initially, there was prayer along with nail-eating—yes, a Nelson injury immediately goes past the biting stage. Then, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport started the process of putting Nelson’s season to bed:

The slight hint of optimism Rapoport provides bears repeating, because nothing is certain yet. Further tests will follow to confirm the extent of Nelson's injury. As pediatrician and Football Guys injury analyst Jene Bramel speculates, Nelson may not have his MRI until Monday morning.

A shred of hope will linger until that testing is complete.

But for now, let’s ponder a question—the same one causing an outbreak of cold sweats throughout Wisconsin: Is a deep Packers wide receiver depth chart really deep enough to compensate for the loss of Nelson?

Former Packers tight end Jermichael Finley thinks suddenly there’s a whole lot of weight on Rodgers’ quite capable arm.

When you look at the team's suddenly evaporated receiving production now with Nelson out, agreeing with Finley is easy at first.

Nelson, 30, has strung together back-to-back 1,300-plus-yard seasons, and since 2013, only two other receivers have recorded more receiving yards than Nelson.

Wide receiver	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
Antonio Brown	239	3,197	21
Demaryius Thomas	203	3,049	25
Jordy Nelson	183	2,833	21
Calvin Johnson	155	2,569	20
Alshon Jeffery	174	2,554	17

Shrugging your shoulders and saying something like, “Meh, but he catches passes from Aaron Rodgers” is lazy and a backward way of discrediting Nelson’s role in Green Bay’s recent offensive fireworks.

Sure, Nelson has clearly benefited from Rodgers’ often unfairly accurate arm. Broncos wideout Demaryius Thomas has enjoyed similar pinpoint throws while catching footballs from Peyton Manning, as has Steelers receiver Antonio Brown while working with Ben Roethlisberger.

But Nelson is still on the other end of those sailing heaves after having the speed to beat coverage and the hands to finish the job. Which brings us to another glistening set of numbers from 2014:

Wide receiver	20-plus-yard receptions	Yards on 20-plus-yard receptions
DeSean Jackson	12	600
Jordy Nelson	12	577
Mike Evans	18	575
Dez Bryant	15	539
T.Y. Hilton	15	528

The question swirling around Nelson and the effort ahead to replace him shifts to this: Is there enough secondary-stretching speed available elsewhere?

It feels like the answer is a silent and hesitant head nod.

The Packers aren’t short on speed beyond Nelson. Even prior to his injury on Sunday, their offense was brimming with vertical threats from all angles.

Slot receiver Randall Cobb posted 1,287 receiving yards in 2014 while darting, weaving and generally acting like the punt returner he is after most of his catches.

Then there’s Davante Adams, who finished his rookie season with 570 receiving yards (playoffs included), even while mostly picking up whatever scraps Cobb and Nelson left behind. Adams was targeted 80 times (again including the postseason), which was substantially behind the looks given to Cobb (148) and Nelson (164).

Adams busted out during a Week 13 win over the New England Patriots with two 30-plus-yard receptions and totaled 121 yards on six catches. He followed that with a playoff outburst against the Dallas Cowboys (117 yards on seven receptions, with a 46-yard touchdown).

According to Rotoworld's Adam Levitan, both Rodgers and Packers head coach Mike McCarthy have since been showering Adams with glowing training camp words.

Which is partly where the optimism fuel comes from in Nelson’s absence. Adams will be his primary replacement on the outside, with 2014 seventh-round pick Jeff Janis now playing opposite him in three-receiver sets (with Cobb in the slot).

The concern, however, is experience. Adams played only 72.8 percent of the Packers’ offensive snaps in 2014 as the third option, per PFF, while Janis is promising but raw. The Division II standout from Saginaw Valley State was inactive for 10 games during his rookie season.

Back in January, Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel asked McCarthy why Janis was behind former Packers receiver Jarrett Boykin at the time.

"Jeff has made some big plays. Had a couple good returns. Caught some vertical balls," McCarthy said. "But a lot of this is new for him. He's gotten better, but I still have Jarrett significantly in front of him."

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Janis entered Sunday’s game as the next body off the bench when Nelson suffered his injury. He did that a week after hauling in a 26-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Scott Tolzien. The problem, as McGinn noted earlier in camp, is there are times when Janis doesn’t play as physically as his 6’3”, 219-pound frame suggests he should.

There’s also another more concerning flaw.

"I'd say he's not a confident catcher, a snatcher, right now," Alex Van Pelt, Green Bay’s wide receivers and quarterbacks coach, told McGinn in mid-August. "He's doing a lot of body catching."

A mild case of drop-itis can be common among inexperienced receivers who are adjusting to the speed at a new, advanced level of football, which is the Packers’ central problem now. Between Janis and rookie Ty Montgomery, the third and fourth spots on their wide receiver depth chart are filled with two pass-catchers who have combined to play 62 regular-season NFL snaps.

But maybe that won’t matter, as pure talent and overall offensive depth could quickly trump any fretting over experience.

There’s plenty of draft pedigree to go around, with the Packers’ starting running back (Eddie Lacy), starting tight end (Richard Rodgers) and top two starting receivers (Cobb and Adams) all selected in the third round or higher.

The effort to replace Nelson won’t be an even, receiver-for-receiver swap. It will take a redirection of resources and an offense-wide push to compensate for the loss of a top-tier target.

But when that offense is led by Aaron Rodgers, you tend to feel good about overcoming an August obstacle to still be playing in February.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com.