A few years ago when Bob Harlan was discussing his career, he brought up this very issue. Recalling when he negotiated player contracts, he said the biggest lesson he had to learn was to establish a ceiling for each player, and stick to it. He said the natural tendency was to give in to players you liked, who were easy to manage, etc. But, that had two negative results. First, every dollar you overpaid to one is a dollar unavailable for another player this year and every year until the overpaid contract expires. He said this was the least of the problems. The worst was ruining the hierarchy of player pay. He said nothing destroys a locker room quicker than making it look as if someone was favored, or someone else taken advantage of. Not just the players affected, but others seeing it.

So, it might not be Nelson they are concerned with, but what it might look like to others in the locker room.

Harlan said it is the hardest thing to do, but sometime you just have to let a player go, rather than give him a bit more to stay, no matter how badly you want to keep him.

A solution used a couple times by Wolf, and several more by Sherman, would be to redo Nelson to give him a bit more. For a while the Packers seemed to do that every year with a player or two, even without significantly extending their contracts. Players who they thought should be slotted higher than they were. Driver benefited from that twice and Rivera at least once, I think. A couple others, too.