There's a good chance that Scott Wells won't be lining up for the Packers at center in the 2012 season. Credit: Mark Hoffman

Green Bay - Scott Wells has never taken no for an answer. The odds are he isn't going to now, either.

In so many words, Wells is being told by the Green Bay Packers that he has overvalued himself as an undersized, 31-year-old center no matter how well he has played for them.

Wells basically is telling the team, “Watch what happens.”

Looking for a warm and fuzzy resolution to the contractual disagreement between the Packers and their best offensive lineman?

Three weeks before the start of unrestricted free agency, the best guess is that the Packers will be playing with a new center next season.

Many times over the years the Packers have gone right to the free-agency bell before signing important veteran players to long-term deals. This time might be different.

It isn’t really an issue of cap room. General manager Ted Thompson and negotiator Russ Ball have the financial flexibility to pay Wells the contract commensurate with the five highest paid centers that he is seeking.

Rather, their offer is the result of how they perceive the market should be and will be for a veteran center.

Agent Brian Parker and Ball surely will talk face-to-face this week during the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Each will reiterate their stances and perhaps attempt to lay groundwork for the compromise that would be necessary to keep Wells in Green Bay.

If they Packers have been low-balling Wells, they won’t much longer. They’ll move to their bottom line, and then Wells will make a decision.

Over the years, the large majority of players want to remain in Green Bay and eventually do. Just as Wells was in the minority making it big as a seventh-round draft choice, he could be in the minority again.

Having dealt with Wells for eight years, this much is true about him: he has a long memory.

Wells hasn’t forgotten that the Packers cut him at the end of his first training camp.

More critically, he hasn’t forgotten how Mike McCarthy and Thompson cast him aside after three years as their starting center and replaced him with Jason Spitz in 2009.

Sources also said the Packers at the time were looking to trade Wells, an immensely proud player they knew to be furious about his demotion.

Injuries to Spitz and other offensive linemen resulted in Wells being right back into the lineup three games into 2009. Still, Wells can wonder where his career would be if Spitz and some others had stayed healthy.

Wells responded with his finest season in ’09, topped it in ’10 and probably was even better yet in ’11. Unlike so many of his teammates, Wells wasn’t offered an early extension and played for base salaries of $2.25 million in 2010 and $2.75 million last year.

He remembers that, too.

For the first time in his football career, Wells is in charge. He’s coming off his first Pro Bowl. His health is robust. And he has the leverage associated with free agency.

A year ago, Wells saw guard Daryn Colledge move to Arizona for $5.5 million per year. Colledge is two years younger than Wells but isn’t in his league as a player.

At the same time, Wells took note of the identical five-year, $27.5 million contract that perhaps the best center in free agency, David Baas, received from the New York Giants.

Baas, 29 at the time, isn’t nearly as good as Wells, either. But at 6 feet 4 ½ inches and 330 pounds Baas is much bigger than Wells (6-2, 300), and bigger almost always is better in the eyes of NFL teams.

Baas presently ranks fifth among in centers with an average annual salary of $5.5 million. The top four are Carolina’s Ryan Kalil ($8.2M), the Jets’ Nick Mangold ($7.7M), St. Louis’ Jason Brown ($7.5M) and Tampa Bay’s Jeff Faine ($6.3M).

When their blockbuster deals were signed, Brown was 25, Kalil and Mangold were 26 and Faine was 27.

When Wells signed his five-year, $15 million extension in November 2006, he was 25.

The father of three children, Wells and his wife realize this is their last chance to achieve financial security. People that know Wells well expect him to go where the money is.

After all that Wells has gone through in Green Bay, he doesn’t figure to give the home-town discount.

Just as being stubborn and tough served Wells so well on the field, look for him to be equally competitive now.

Nine teams besides the Packers have their starting center headed for free agency. A few probably will be resigned, but either way it figures to be a game of musical chairs with 13 unrestricted centers jousting for jobs.

“If you needed a center in free agency this year, to me the first one you’d be looking at is Chris Myers,” an AFC personnel man said Monday. “Second guy would be (Dan) Koppen. Out of Wells, (Samson) Satele and (Nick) Hardwick, beauty will be in the eye of the beholder. I’d trust Scott Wells the most of those three.”

Houston’s Myers (6-4 ½, 296) and San Diego’s Hardwick (6-3 ½, 305) are 30. New England’s Koppen (6-2 ½, 296) is 32. Oakland’s Satele (6-2 ½, 300) is 27.

“Wells wouldn’t fit my height and ideal length standards,” the scout said. “But you can win with Scott Wells. I just don’t think you can with five Scott Wells.”

Atlanta and Indianapolis, two teams within a four-hour drive of Wells’ home outside Nashville, have a hole at center and could be suitors.

Three months ago, McCarthy said that “Scott’s representatives and our guys need to get to whatever that price is.”

Without Wells, McCarthy would be left with Evan Dietrich-Smith competing against maybe an aging ex-starter obtained in free agency. Wisconsin’s Peter Konz, the only top center in the draft, might not be left when the Packers pick at No. 28.

Just because Wells tests the market doesn’t mean he won’t return. James Jones came back a year ago.

But given all that is Scott Wells, he’s probably gone if the Packers haven’t signed him by March 13 at 3 p.m.