Packers ‘low-balled’ Nelson
Former Packer James Jones says the team made an offer Jordy Nelson couldn’t accept.
GREEN BAY - The tone of Jordy Nelson’s voice was familiar. Former Green Bay Packers receiver James Jones probably sounded the same way when the team chose to let him walk in free agency.
Jones talked to Nelson shortly after the Packers released the 32year-old receiver Tuesday, and he was the one who broke the news on Twitter that Nelson had signed a two-year, $15 million deal with the Oakland Raiders on Thursday afternoon.
He said Nelson will feel the hurt for a while.
“You always feel you’ve got more in you, especially one more year,” Jones said in a phone interview. “You think to where you were and what you’ve done. He was having a great season and then ‘12’ (quarterback Aaron Rodgers) got hurt.”
Nelson was released because the Packers had a chance to clear $10.25 million of salary-cap room and use it on a pair of free agents they wanted to sign, as well as extend Rodgers’ contract.
The Packers did offer a pay cut, but Jones said the deal was so bad there was no way Nelson would take it, not with the interest there seemed to be in him from other teams. Even so, Jones said Nelson contemplated returning to the Packers.
“I’m not going to say what they offered him, but they really, really
low-balled him,” Jones said. “It wasn’t even anything you would consider. Even with all that, he was still considering taking it.”
Jones said Nelson was buoyed by the fact that the Raiders and Seahawks, among other teams, were interested in signing him. It made him feel he made the right decision not to accept a lowball offer from the Packers.
It was clear Green Bay wanted to move on.
“Obviously that was a little shock to the system and not what you want to hear after you’ve been somewhere for 10 years, but we know it’s part of the business,” Nelson said on a conference call Thursday with reporters who cover the Raiders.
“Once that happened and the news broke, people started reaching out. Obviously I know (former Packers offensive coordinator) Edgar Bennett, who coaches here now, from my years in Green Bay so he reached out right away. Him and Coach (John) Gruden were all over trying to get me out here as soon as possible.”
Jones said Nelson would have worked with the Packers on an incentive-laden deal to stay, but the team wasn’t interested. Jones said it would not have helped if the Packers would have just told Nelson they were going to cut him rather than offer a low-ball contract.
“He’s given the organization everything he has, at least give him one more season,” Jones said. “It’s not going to hurt the team. He’s going to help you. He could have given you one more year.
“But at the end of the day, it’s a business. You should never be surprised. I’ve seen Peyton Manning and Charles Woodson and so many other people get released.”
Even with the hurt Nelson is feeling now, Jones said, he will embrace the franchise again, just like Jones did when he returned in 2015.
“He’s going to retire as a Packer,” Jones said. “You’d like to stay with one team your entire career. It’s hard. It’s too bad he has to go through this. But I’m happy for him going to Oakland. He’s going to show he can play at a high level.”
Nelson’s catches fell from 97 catches for 1,257 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2016 to 53 for 482 yards and six scores last season, when Rodgers played only seven games due to injury.
“If you look two years ago, the year I won NFL Comeback Player of the Year coming off my ACL, I was still productive – 1,200 yards, 14 touchdowns,” Nelson told Oakland media. “I think we had a lot of different things going on last year that obviously affected that.
“I can still run. I can still catch. Football, at this level, a lot of people focus on speed, but I ran a 4.5 coming out of college so I wasn’t blazing then either. It’s different when you get helmet and shoulder pads on. I think I can do that. I can make plays.”