NFL training camp:
Knee injuries can be career killers, but star receiver confident he again will bring impact for Packers
In our 16-page pullout, we size up teams’ big questions and key position battles; plus, the Colts’ Andrew Luck burns to be better, the Packers’ Jordy Nelson tries big leap back to stardom, and the Bills’ Tyrod Taylor welcomes a big opportunity.
Of the Green Bay Packers’ six No. 1 wide receivers since their football renaissance began 25 years ago, one was a great player by his ninth season.
The Packers need the seventh man on that list, Jordy Nelson, to be great in this, his ninth season.
Major knee injuries wrecked the careers of Robert Brooks in the mid-1990s and Javon Walker in the mid-2000s. Nelson is seek- ing to avoid their fate as he returns after tearing an anterior cruciate ligament 11 months ago.
In part because of surgical advancements and his own strong will, Nelson appears to be well ahead of the curve in his rehabilitation. Nelson even indicated on a national radio show in January that he might have been ready to play in the Super Bowl if the Packers had qualified. (They lost in overtime to the Arizona Cardinals in the divisional round.)
Luke Getsy, Nelson’s first-year position coach, expressed no doubt whatsoever when asked in late May if Nelson would be an outstanding player again.
“I’d be a fool to say that the way that guy attacks everything,” Getsy said. “He’s a guy that sees a barrier and knocks it down. Anybody would be a fool to say they wouldn’t expect this guy to come back and be who everyone expects him to be.”
That is, the top gun for a unit that miserably failed to respond to his absence.
But history suggests that for Nelson, 31, the road back to his Pro Bowl form of 2014 is anything but a fait accompli. Consider these players:
uSterling Sharpe: He was 29, in his seventh season and at the peak of his powers, when he suffered a cervical neck injury in December 1994. He never played again.
uBrooks: After a spectacular season in 1995, he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and patellar tendon in addition to meniscus cartilage damage on the first play of the seventh game in ’96. A fierce competitor, he served as a suitable No. 2 in ’97, although the knee prevented him from being as explosive or dynamic. He couldn’t separate at all from defenders in ’98, had two back oper-