Jordy Nelson still has no interest in returning to football

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He rested as a member of the Packers last August, and he said the following month that he’s done with football. Nine months later, Jordy Nelson says he’s still done with football.


“We’re not coming back,” Nelson recently told Jason Wilde of the Wisconsin State Journal. “There’s no doubt about that. We’re done. . . [W]hen you first get in the NFL and you’re performing very well, you’re underpaid, and then when you sign a big contract, you become overpaid. When you’re towards the end of your career, you get released and people say you’re too slow, you’ve lost a step, you can’t play anymore; and then apparently when you retire, everyone wants you to come back. . . . I’m confused on what I need to do, so I’ll just stay at home. No one’s ever satisfied.”

Nelson admitted that, before last season, he and quarterback Aaron Rodgers had conversations about a reunion that would have followed Nelson’s one-year stop with the Raiders, after being cut by the Packers.

“I don’t know how serious they got, just because there’s only so much control that we had over it,” Nelson said. “There’s other people in the organization who make those decisions, make that decision on who’s on the team and who’s not. So I wasn’t going to dive into a hard-core conversation unless I knew there was a chance to come back. . . . I think [Rodgers] knew deep down that if there was an opportunity right after Oakland, I probably would have [come back]. But obviously it’s not up to us.”

Nelson said he believes he could have helped the Packers during the two seasons since his departure, but he also admitted that it’s normal for a player to think that.

Nelson told Tim Layden of NBCSports.com last year that Nelson was happy to be leaving the game healthy. It nevertheless sounds like Nelson was conflicted, and that maybe if he’d had an opportunity to return to Green Bay, he would have.

It’s hard not to wonder whether Nelson would return now, if the opportunity were to arise. Still, officially, his position is that he’s done.