The principal hope for the Green Bay Packers to improve their offense in 2016, to stave off the painful memories of a year in which they finished a woeful 25th in passing yards per game, bounded into the interview room wearing a purple Air Jordan T-shirt and his trademark ear-to-ear smile.
Wide receiver Jordy Nelson, eight months removed from suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in an exhibition game, was in terrific spirits as he approached a dense semicircle of reporters.
"Feel great," Nelson said. "Obviously, we've had _ I don't know how many months it's been now, but a long time through the recovery. Done a great job with it. Trainers, doc, everything has been great. I've been here all offseason doing it and progressed extremely well. Right where we want to be, look forward to the offseason and doing some things."
Monday marked the beginning of the Packers' offseason workout program, and players spent the weekend traveling to Wisconsin after more than two months to themselves in places both near and far.
The unofficial start to the 2016 season ushered in waves of excitement and energy around Lambeau Field. Most of buzz surrounded an offense that -- with the impending return of Nelson, a slimmed-down version of tailback Eddie Lacy and the addition of tight end Jared Cook -- figures to be among the best in the National Football League once again.
The positive updates from Nelson, who said he spent the majority of his offseason rehabbing in Green Bay, served as the latest chapter in a recovery story that seems to have played out entirely ahead of schedule. He plans to participate in the full offseason conditioning program. He will be present for individual position workouts. The only question is how much he will participate in organized team activities, he said.
"Everything we've done through rehab, I don't have a mental block with anything," Nelson said.
From the moment he jumped to snag a pass against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Aug. 23, landing and spinning and tearing his ACL in one disheartening motion, Nelson said he "attacked" the process with an aggressive mindset. Throughout the season, fleeting glimpses of Nelson transitioned from crutch-filled to brace-laden to free-moving rehab sessions off to the side of the Don Hutson Center. At the NFL scouting combine in February, general manager Ted Thompson cracked a joke about wondering if Nelson was truly hurt.
As of Monday, Nelson said he had even resumed running routes, though that endeavor is classified as a "progression."
"We've been running," Nelson said. "We've been lifting. We pretty much did the whole offseason program that they sent home with everyone else. So we're right where we want to be. Look forward to continuing to progress, keeping track of it and hopefully staying on the right path."
That the mental portion of Nelson's recovery has gone smoothly is a credit, he said, to Patrick McKenzie, the team physician, and the rest of the medical staff. They created fresh workouts and new exercises to serve as a rebuttal for boredom. And when the weeks began to move quickly, Nelson said his patience was rarely tested the way some athletes can become disengaged through months of potentially monotonous rehab.
"They've kept me entertained," Nelson said. "... We've had some battles of progression, but that's mainly to push them a little bit, and then they try to pull us back a little bit, and we find a happy medium."
By remaining in Green Bay throughout the season, Nelson attended all of the wide receiver and offensive meetings. His knowledge of the offense, the routes and the pillars of a successful relationship with quarterback Aaron Rodgers functioned as additional textbooks for the young receivers, many of whom played prominent roles in an injury-riddled season at the position.
But despite Nelson's ever-present approach to rehab, Rodgers said the young receivers were somewhat shortchanged by the inability to watch him practice on a consistent basis.
"I think that was one place they missed last year was not having Jordy out there (in practice)," Rodgers said. "Because the way he practices really sets the tempo and gives you a great look of what greatness looks like in practice every single day.
"And much like I had watching Brett (Favre) and the young receivers had watching Donald (Driver) when he was an older player, those practice habits are really invaluable to a younger player making those jumps from years one to two and two to three."
With Nelson on schedule for a full return by the start of the season, the threadbare receiving corps that finished last season -- Jeff Janis, Jared Abbrederis and James Jones were the three players to walk off the field in Arizona -- is suddenly an oasis of depth and experience. The unit boasts two receivers with 1,000-yard seasons in Nelson and Randall Cobb and four developing players who all have shown flashes at some point over the last two seasons.
A trio of youngsters -- Janis, Abbrederis and Ty Montgomery, a rookie in 2015 -- return to Green Bay having earned their first significant playing time last season, and the next step in their developments, along with that of third-year receiver Davante Adams, will focus largely on subtleties of the game. Rodgers said he expects them to learn where the windows are when playing against zone defenses, how to use their bodies to get off press coverage and develop the small tricks veterans use to create valuable inches of separation.
In other words, the things Nelson has done throughout his career.
"We've said it for years: Aaron wants to see you make plays in practice and carry it over into the game," Nelson said, "and that builds the confidence there. For me, it's continuing to grind on them in the meeting room and continuing to go do work on the field."
And now his handful of understudies will finally be able to watch.
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