Jordy Nelson and Greg Jennings are among the Packers' wide receivers group which doesn't allow anyone to get too swelled of a head. Credit: AP

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Green Bay - They police vanity 24/7. Big-headedness is hunted down and prosecuted. The Green Bay Packers wide receivers - all five of them - don't hold back.

When Greg Jennings cycled through the late-night television scene and appeared on "Royal Pains" last off-season, they called him "Hollywood" repeatedly.

"If we feel like someone's head is blowing up," said Jennings, imitating a tire deflating, "it's like 'Pshhhhhh. . . let's bring that back down."

So no choreographed celebrations. No reality shows. No outrageous behavior. Anything that may lure a spotlight is prohibited.

Last week, Jennings peered across the locker room toward Aaron Rodgers' empty stall. That's his quarterback - his teammate - but not his fellow receiver.

"Aaron gets so much attention," Jennings said. "Aaron could not be in our room. We would ride him. We'd say, 'So it's just about you? So nobody else is making plays?' "

What binds them makes them unique, makes them elite. All five Packers wide receivers - Jennings, James Jones, Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb - are linked by humble college beginnings. One was shunned by his dream school. One never partied. One went to a school his teammates can't pronounce. One jumped from the farm to the Big 12. And one went to a school that'll forever be known for basketball.

For this to work, for uninterrupted harmony, greed of any degree needed to be exterminated. Unselfishness, demanded. Tight end Jermichael Finley was back and Rodgers can only throw to whoever's open. For the wideouts, small-school roots instilled an attitude.

Now, collectively, they're pioneering one of the best offenses in NFL history.

***

He grew up less than two hours from Ann Arbor. Just like his cousin Ian Gold, Greg Jennings would be a Michigan Wolverine. No questions asked. With dad at his side, Jennings sat in Lloyd Carr's office. He committed to the university. This was his dream.

Suddenly, the phone calls stopped. Interest waned. With signing day closing fast, Jennings called the football office.

"I said, 'What's up with the scholarship?' " he recalled. "They said, 'Greg, we've got some bad news. We can bring you on as a preferred walk-on. You can earn a scholarship.' "

Jennings nearly hung up on the spot. He was crushed. He broke down in tears.

"It hurt," Jennings said. "It hurt because I put all of my eggs in one basket. I turned down Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue, all these other schools because I was so blinded by the fact that 'I'm going to Michigan. Period.' "

Options low, Jennings settled on Western Michigan. On Saturdays, 30,000 people would watch him play instead of 110,000. Yippee. His lifelong dream wasn't to play in his backyard in Kalamazoo. It was to "bleed maize and blue." Jennings' older sister, Valyncia, turned the table.

If Mom and Dad invested all this energy as parents into him and his brother, she told Greg, it was a waste of time. A waste of money. At Western, he needed to work twice as hard. To this day, Jennings says that message resonates. She still texts him reminders.

"That statement propelled me to be the athlete and the man that I am today," he said.

Jennings finished as Western Michigan's all-time leader in receptions (238) and touchdown catches (39) and finished second in receiving yards (3,539). Nationally, not many people noticed. All good. Obscurity motivated him.

"Watching some of the guys coming out of Michigan, they were handed everything," Jennings said. "The media was there. The publicity was there. The exposure was there. They got all the attention. They really didn't have to do too much. They had to do just enough. For me, I knew that I was kind of behind the 8-ball."

There is one thing his sister never understood then and doesn't understand now - Jennings would do it all with zero flash. He'd make Michigan pay quietly. The closest he has ever come to a touchdown celebration was what Driver labeled, "The Squirrel."

After his third touchdown in a 31-3 win at Minnesota last year, Jennings popped off the turf, started to shake and. . .

"I caught myself and went down on one knee," he said. "I had to catch myself and say, 'Whoa! That's not you.' "

***

James Jones was a walking oxymoron. At San Jose State, he was a fraternity brother who never drank alcohol. He tried to play it off. In the kitchen, he'd mix pineapple juice with orange juice or some other concoction.

He tried to blend in without giving in to temptation.

"When somebody offered me a drink, I'd just say, 'Nah,' " Jones said. "I didn't want to get started."

The reason? Both of Jones' parents abused drugs and alcohol. His uncles, his cousins, most of Jones' family tree was scarred by alcohol abuse. He saw how it ruined their lives and vowed to be different.

Peer pressure tugged at his conscience. He caught some flak but eventually Jones' friends backed off. They understood his past and understood his future.

"Wait until draft day," Jones told them. Through high school and college, that was his promise to friends. If Jones was ever drafted, he told them he'd drink for the first time. They were all invited.

Meanwhile, he spent his energy elsewhere.

"A lot of times when my friends went to the clubs, I went to the gym," Jones said. "I made a promise to my mom that I'd take care of her and football was the way."

Jones didn't walk into a starting position at San Jose State. He had one reception his freshman year and 25 as a sophomore. For three years, he was primarily a backup.

"He definitely had to earn it," said Keith Williams, Jones' position coach at the school. "There were great players at his position when he came to San Jose State, which helped him develop as a player."

Spending "endless hours" together, Williams worked with Jones. At the jugs machine, in the film room, wherever. The high school quarterback learned how to run precise routes and play physical. All along, he never swore. The closest Jones came, Williams said, was "the most intense, livid, 'Goshdangit' you heard in your life."

Other receivers graduated, his opportunity came and Jones caught 70 passes for 893 yards with 10 touchdowns as a senior. The NFL draft became a real possibility.

"He worked like an animal," Williams said. "He knew it was his time. That motivated him. He knew he needed to raise his level."

The night of April 28, 2007, is still a little hazy. No, he never threw up. But after the Packers took Jones in the third round, 78th overall, all of Jones' friends resurfaced. They remembered his promise.

"It was a fun night," Jones said. "It was the first night I ever drank in my life and they were trying to kill me. I made it through, though."

***

As Jones talks about this year's San Jose State team, a faint "Alcorn State!" cry is heard in the background. It's Donald Driver.

"Oh, we'd bash Alcorn," says Jones, hitting a sore spot.

"It's not Ale-corn, it's All-corn!" Driver shoots back. "You say Ale-corn?"

Jones mocks the name some more.

"OK," Driver said. "How do you say ' All-ways?' "

"I say ' Ale-ways!"

Driver shakes his head. Jennings may be from Western Michigan. Jones may be from San Jose State. But to Driver, those are powerhouses. He's from the smallest school of all. He's the underdog's underdog.

When Driver's grandmother drove him to college for the first time in 1996, they nearly missed the tiny "Alcorn State" sign on the road. When they finally arrived, all Driver knew was that he was in Mississippi. Somewhere in Mississippi.

It's an interesting drive. Back then, there were no guardrails on the highway leading into campus.

"If you went off the side of the road, you're falling straight down into the woods," Driver said. "There was nothing to save you. If you fell off that cliff, you were most likely gone."

Driver had several scholarship offers from large schools. But he wanted to please his grandfather - not pro scouts. All along, his grandfather wanted him to attend a historically black college. He valued education first.

At Alcorn State, a Division I-AA member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Driver shined in football and track. But for him, sports were sincerely secondary.

"My grandfather always told me that 'when it's all said and done, people won't look at you as one of the greatest football players. They'll never look at you like that. But if you have the education and you're intelligent, your integrity stands for everything,' " Driver said. "When he built that into me, I took it to heart."

Nestled in the deep woods of Mississippi, Driver became a man. He moved farther and farther away from his made-for-cinema childhood. Instead of selling drugs and stealing cars to help his homeless mother and sisters survive, Driver was studying. As an accounting major, Driver learned he "couldn't talk in slang" for presentations. He developed professionalism.

Fulfilling his grandfather's wish, Driver developed the tools he'd eventually need as the unofficial ambassador for the Packers.

So even after a stellar collegiate career in two sports, Driver assumed nothing. In Houston, he was offered a job at an accounting firm. He'd make $60,000. Draft day came and Driver was taken with the 213th overall pick in the seventh round. Upon arriving in Green Bay, Driver says general manager Ron Wolf brought him into his office.

"He said, 'I have everything riding on you. Don't let me down,' " Driver said. "For a general manager to tell you everything's riding on you the first time, you can't let him down."

Of course, he didn't. Thirteen years later, he's still going.

"Football's becoming like baseball - there's a record for everything," Wolf said. "But the fact that Donald Driver is the leading receiver in the history of the Green Bay Packers, that's monumental. That's like saying he's the leading home run hitter of the New York Yankees.

"Everybody talks about toughness. But his toughness is incredible."

***

Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb? They did go to power conferences - Nelson to the Big 12, Cobb to the SEC. That's where their superiority ends. Close friends with John Wall, Cobb fully understood his place on Kentucky's campus.

"It's second tier, definitely second tier," Cobb said. "That's what it is. It's a basketball school and that's something that a bunch of us tried to change."

He came close. The Wildcats finished 6-7 his final season, nearly knocking off eventual champion Auburn. Cobb threw, ran and caught passes to make Kentucky relevant. After the season, he trained with Alabama's Julio Jones and Georgia's A.J. Green to test himself, to challenge this inferiority complex.

And when Kentucky beat Tennessee for the first time in 26 years two weeks ago, Cobb felt progress, tweeting, "Man I'm so proud of those boys! They did it! It's been a long time coming but they showed so much heart and determination."

Nelson's story is similar. He played quarterback at tiny Riley County High School - somewhere among the farms of Kansas - and walked onto the team at Kansas State as a safety. Hardly recognizable, the longtime farmer caught 122 passes for 1,606 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Now, Nelson is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL and he wonders if defenses are still underestimating his speed.

Before this season, there were no town hall meetings. The wide receivers didn't sit down to remind each other to stay patient through inevitable turbulence.

"We understood that from Day 1," Jennings said. "We don't have to say that. That's something that's second nature. We know we won't have that guy that has 100 catches for 1,500 yards and 20 touchdowns. That's not going to happen."

"As far as being hungry and wanting success - it's in our blood, it's in our nature," Cobb added. "That's in our veins. It's what we want. Nothing was handed to us."

So Detroit's Calvin Johnson can have his "Megatron" nickname. The New York Giants' Victor Cruz can continue salsa dancing. And Buffalo's Stevie Johnson can pretend to shoot himself in the leg - "hilarious, hilarious," Jennings admits.

All five wide receivers here needed to sacrifice something for the Packers' offense to thrive.

Snaps. Targets. Money. Attention.

But in truth, this ethos was a decade in the makings. Wolf and current general manager Ted Thompson found receivers forced to battle in college. Jennings says the attitude became contagious. A specific dynamic was molded.

And now, Green Bay is 12-0. He hopes Rodgers questions never end.

"We always hear, 'Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron,' " Jennings said. "He can have it. We're confident in ourselves. We know what we do. We make him look good and he makes us look good.

"If you want attention you'll get it. It'll come. But it'll come when it needs to come."