Jordy Nelson scores a touchdown on a 80-yard reception during the third quarter against the Jets. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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Green Bay — At his locker, Jordy Nelson refuses to have the discussion. Other pro wide receivers relish the bulletin board. He hardly provides a Post-It.

Elite? He's not into "elite." Calvin Johnson? The Green Bay Packers wide receiver draws no extra motivation from being on the same field as "Megatron."

He chuckles at questions. He doesn't deviate from all-about-team autopilot.

"I'm not worried about if I'm elite, top 5, top 10, whatever people want to talk about," Nelson said. "I'm here to do my job and that's run good routes. If the numbers produce like they have the last two games, then great. As long as we're winning."

Sunday, Nelson duels Johnson. And the 6-foot-5, 236-pounder in Detroit is the closest the NFL has to LeBron James, a monstrosity of a receiver on the fast track to Canton. Athletic freaks dominate the position. The nationally echoed cream of the crop — Johnson, A.J. Green, Dez Bryant, Demaryius Thomas, Julio Jones, Brandon Marshall — are tall, muscular, blistering physical marvels.

Two games in, Nelson is nudging his way into the debate he hates.

So the question is: What makes Jordy Nelson different?

Defensive backs who covered all of the above, coaches, personnel types and three of the best to ever play the position — Cris Carter, Tim Brown and James Lofton — have an idea. Intelligence. Raw strength. Sideline acrobatics. Fear of the deep ball. Yards after catch.

No, you will not be DVR-ing 50-yard jump balls out of No. 87 at Ford Field. You may be mesmerized at how Nelson sees the exact same thing quarterback Aaron Rodgers sees.

Here's what makes Jordy Nelson Jordy Nelson.

The defensive backs

On back to back days, Sam Shields is asked about the receiver he'll be covering Sunday. This time, it's 10-15 reporters instead of one. The Packers cornerback finishes, takes a seat, sighs and — stretching his cheek bones — says his jaw hurts from saying the name "Calvin Johnson" so many times.

Shields has faced the game's best wideouts these last 12 months. If anyone has a cosmic perspective, it's him.

Green? "A.J., he's quick. An explosive guy. Once he's on top of you, that's it. A guy like him you have to play honest on. You can't jump routes on him."

Bryant? "A real physical receiver, route runner. Can go up and get the ball. He plays hard."

Marshall? "Real physical. Big. Another guy, if he gets on top of you, that's it."

And...loosen that jaw, Sam...Calvin Johnson? "He's a beast, man. He has it all. Speed. Physical. Big."

All studs. All in their own stratosphere. Yet one reason for Shields' maturation from undrafted rookie to inking a four-year, $39 million deal is the daily jousting with Nelson. He faced them all and, no, Shields repeats multiple times, he sees zero difference in talent.

"He's on that level," Shields said. "He's right along with him (Johnson). Jordy can make the explosive plays. He'll catch it and go the long yard with it. It's no different."

The key for Nelson, he continues, is recognizing coverages instantly. He'll "convert" his route before the cornerback blinks. Yet nationally, Shields agrees, Nelson's name isn't thrown into the mix. "Never," he says, a tad disgusted.

Safety/cornerback Micah Hyde goes a step further, saying Nelson doesn't get nearly enough respect on or off the field. Teams don't double-team him. Yet like Shields, Hyde puts Nelson "at the top" of his list.

Johnson is much larger. Yet to Hyde, both are "nearly impossible to shut down." Nelson's speed is deceptive. He glides. On a slant, a post he pulls away with an effortless stride. Shaking his head, Hyde describes Nelson as fast without appearing fast.

Both top wideouts will demand attention Sunday, albeit in totally different ways.

"You might not throw that jump ball to Jordy," Hyde said, "but you will throw that back-shoulder fade. He's going to reach out with one hand and grab it....With Calvin Johnson you know it's a jump ball. It doesn't matter if he's underneath or on top. With Jordy, you know it's how do you get in front, how to get behind.

"Playing with somebody like A-Rod, he puts it in the right spot too for him."

The best

Cris Carter's cell phone lit up non-stop last week. From Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson, the league is in crisis and this Hall of Famer has been one voice of reason.

Right when he's about to turn down another interview, Carter hears the name "Jordy Nelson" and pauses. He has to talk. He loves Nelson's game. Carter himself was no 6-foot-5 specimen sent from Planet Receiver. Like Nelson, he burned defenses in other ways.

The discussion shifts to Nelson's speed, Hyde's point.

"He's not a speed receiver but he can get deep," Carter said. "You can tell by his 40 time he has good speed but we have plenty of guys faster than him. Who would you rather have — Mike Wallace or Jordy Nelson?"

A pause, an "I don't know" and Carter loses it.

"You don't know! I'd rather have Jordy Nelson!" he fires back. "And Mike Wallace is going to win a foot race.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

Nelson's speed is a different brand of speed — something three of the game's all-time best wide receivers know all about. Specifically, Nelson a) strikes the fear of the deep ball into the cornerback then b) runs a bevy of routes off of that fear, including the back-shoulder throw.

Asked how Nelson differs from the Johnson/Green/Bryant pantheon, Carter points to route running. His depths are to the inch and he's "very, very alert" to coverages.

"He's what I call a 'pro receiver,'" Carter said. "He's professional with his route running, his depths, he doesn't complain, he plays 100%. He blocks. He's a good teammate. He doesn't think he's great. He's an introvert, not an extrovert diva."

The fear of the long ball omnipresent, cornerbacks (such as the New York Jets' Dee Milliner last week) play on their heels. Tim Brown calls Nelson one of the NFL's greatest "actors." He'll fool corners, play to play, into thinking he's going deep. He won't bat his eyes — let alone flip his head around — until the last split-second.

The back-shoulder throw from 10-12 yards may be defendable. Not at 18-20 yards, Brown said.

"Any time you get a DB running that hard," Brown said, "he's thinking one thing and one thing only — 'this brother's taking me deep.' If a quarterback is able to put that ball 20 yards on the sideline, it'll be a catch any time."

Under Al Davis, the stopwatch ruled all. Assistant coach James Lofton and all Oakland Raiders scouts were required to research a prospect's track and field background. And, in 2008, Lofton discovered that Nelson was a state champ in the 100, 200 and 400 meters.

Yet Nelson is, well, Caucasian. These other five-star receivers in the NFL are not.

Could there still be an element of deception in skin color? In 2011 — his breakout season — Nelson and teammates said race could be a factor.

"There aren't a lot of African-Americans with that size or speed either," Lofton cut in. "There just aren't a lot of players that have that size, are that fast and then can accentuate and move their body. It's one thing to have straight-line speed. That's nice. But to be able to contort your body, move it, is different."

Without using names, Lofton points to the wide receivers in Chicago who cannot execute the back-shoulder throw with Nelson-like precision. Marshall and Alshon Jeffery don't necessarily possess burner, 0-to-60 speed.

"That corner is kind of judging and waiting," Lofton said, "Jordy Nelson, you don't know if he's going to put the brakes on because he can legitimately run by you."

To Lofton, Johnson reigns supreme. Always has. In 2004, when Lofton was an assistant on a 12-4 San Diego Chargers team, one scout told him to check out some freshman kid at Georgia Tech the day before his game at Atlanta. Lofton watched pregame warm-ups, headed back to the team hotel and later told that scout that Calvin Johnson — as a freshman — was better than any receiver currently on the Chargers roster.

To Brown, Johnson isn't that exciting to watch. To Brown, who totaled 14,934 yards and 100 touchdowns in a pre-Roger Goodell NFL, an elite receiver is one with "blinkers." Many wideouts (think: Wallace, Mike) go vertical but can't make sharp left- and right-hand turns.

They're not going across the middle. They're not taking the 5-yarder into 19 yards, Brown said, not taking the 20-yarder 60 yards.

Nelson makes these turns; Johnson doesn't.

"And to be honest with you," Brown said, "I don't believe he can. That's not a knock on him. That's a physical inability. When you're wearing size 16 shoes, there's only so many turns you can make."

The presence of Rodgers does give Brown pause in putting Nelson in his top 5. With the exception of last year's seven-game stretch, Nelson has caught passes from an MVP quarterback his entire career. Not quite Brown's plight in Oakland. Before Rich Gannon arrived 12 years into Brown's career, he worked with journeymen.

To be considered one of the best, he says, it cannot matter who's throwing you the ball.

"You still have to be able to put your numbers up," Brown said, "and be the threat you were when you had a gunslinger back there. And that's tough....I'm not going to say he's a product of the system, but certainly the system has not hurt."

Carter doesn't like this logic, shouting it's "not Nelson's fault!" Aaron Rodgers is his quarterback.

Maybe it's not so cut and dried. Maybe this relationship — one reaching a doctorate level of QB/WR Relations — is what makes Jordy Nelson rare in itself.

The coaches

Jim Kelly and Andre Reed connected for 71 touchdowns. Rodgers and Nelson are at 36 and counting.

The backup quarterback on those Buffalo Bills teams spots parallels.

"You see the makings of that, the connection there," said Alex Van Pelt, the Packers' quarterbacks coach. "Both of those guys were extremely competitive and wanted to be successful and I see that here with Aaron and Jordy."

Van Pelt places a hand high, places it low. Rodgers and Nelson discuss the exact ball placement needed on certain routes. Rodgers has the accuracy, Nelson the torso-twisting acrobatics. Trust took time. In Nelson's first three seasons, he averaged 3.33 targets per game. Since then, he's seeing 7.07 per game.

Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator Jay Norvell, a wide receivers coach in Indianapolis from 1998-2001, remembers Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison practicing the same route for a half-hour straight...daily. Twenty-five, 30 times in a row, they'd run a play until it was mastered.

In Green Bay, Rodgers and Nelson are reaching a point of similar geometry. And beyond that, exists a telepathy.

"They're basically the same person right now in their thought process," Van Pelt said. "If you see them not on the same page, it's very rare.... The communication is the first step and then just the repetition.

Nelson credits the hunt for nuanced details in meetings, the time spent with Rodgers, the "listening all the time." He'll eavesdrop into Rodgers' conversations with other receivers.

The result is uncommon ball placement, uncommon trust.

Added offensive coordinator Tom Clements, "Jordy, he does what he's supposed to do, he's where he's supposed to be, he has very good talent — outstanding talent — and when you combine that with a guy who can put the ball where it's supposed to be, you can make good things happen."

The general manager

Inside the Cleveland Browns 2008 draft war room, Nelson was a scout favorite. The "quickness," the "separation" off the line, the "subtleties" of the position were all evident out of Kansas State to then-general manager Phil Savage.

One problem. He didn't pick until the fourth round because of prior trades.

Savage had a feeling Nelson would star one day. Of course, the situation was perfect in Green Bay.

"If he had gone to a different organization with a different quarterback, different system, his career might have gone differently," Savage said.

In other words, if Nelson joins Brady Quinn, we may not be talking about Jordy Nelson.

If he was building a team today, Savage would start with Johnson and Green. And Jones' limbo-like, Willie Mays-likes catch the night before against Tampa Bay is still on his mind, too. But from Pop Warner to high school to college to the pros, he adds, quarterbacks find a favorite receiver.

And if a team is armed with such an innate connection, why even search for the 6-foot-5 freak? Why does anything else matter?

As the Packers GM, Ted Thompson has never drafted a wide receiver above 6 feet 3 inches tall, instead searching for receivers in the Nelson mold. Ones who may, one day, somehow, some way, see what Rodgers sees.

“Everybody talks about the strongest arm, the guy who can throw the ball 75 yards in the air and the guys who run the fastest in the combine in a straight-line at the 40-yard dash,” Savage said. “There’s always so much more to the quarterback position and the wide receiver position. Jordy has found his niche that really accentuates the positives of his game.”

Sunday's showdown

Briefly, Lofton gets nostalgic. Through the '70s, the '80s, even the '90s, everyone tuned in to watch the running backs.

Earl Campbell vs. Eric Dickerson. Emmitt Smith vs. Barry Sanders.

"Now," Lofton said, "there is not a game where you tune in and say, 'Whoa, I want to watch these two running backs go after it!' Nobody does that anymore. It's all about the wide receivers now."

Like Sunday. Like Jordy Nelson vs. Calvin Johnson.

This is the new NFL. If you're not catching a lot of balls in 2014, Brown jokes, you better find a new profession. Lofton points to the "smoke" route. The quick-hitting, horizontal pass for 4 yards didn't exist in his days.

Body type...YAC...OK, Lofton sees some of former Minnesota Viking Ahmad Rashad in Nelson. Then again, citing the 80-yarder last week, Lofton says Nelson is much faster. And then again, in Lofton's heyday, the route tree was 0 through 9. When he last coached the Chargers in 2007, he had 57 routes.

Who knows what Green Bay's total is?

"It's like a grocery store," Lofton said. "You'd go into the store to buy cereal and you'd buy Wheaties, Cheerios or Raisin Bran. You go in the cereal aisle now and you start staring at it and say, 'What are all these choices here?'"

Today's fan has every possible choice of wide receiver, too.

Megatron goes LeBron on corners. Dez Bryant plays with a boxer's violence and, um, flair. A.J. Green is a younger, quieter Randy Moss.

And those seeking a sixth sense rapport between quarterback and receiver will be tuning into Green Bay.

"When you have a healthy Jordy and a healthy Aaron," Brown said, "it's a tough day at the office, a real tough day at the office."