Packers Quarterback Conundrum: What If Jordan Love Isn’t the Answer?
Jordan Love is the Green Bay Packers’ starting quarterback.
That is true for 2023.
Will it remain true for 2024?
Through two games, it looked like the Packers may have struck gold at the quarterback position again.
After 30 years of Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, the Packers drafted Love before they needed to take a quarterback in hopes they could develop him and continue the lineage of great quarterback play.
Love’s first two games, a 38-20 win and a 25-24 loss, left the team feeling good about the progress of its young quarterback.
In a 24-hour news cycle, one claim was getting louder and louder. The Packers had found their quarterback of the future.
The wheels started to shake a little bit in an 18-17 win over New Orleans in the Packers’ home opener. The Packers were shut out for three quarters, but that stench was covered up by an 18-point fourth-quarter comeback that got them to 2-1.
That’s the last time the Packers won a game.
Since then? The wheels have fallen off, the car has rolled over and the Packers’ offense is stuck in a ditch with no relief in sight.
The offense's continued struggles lead to one simple question that general manager Brian Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur should be asking themselves.
What if Love isn’t their guy?
Yes, that question seems ridiculous after just six starts as the preferred starter, but that is the situation Gutekunst and his staff put themselves in when they had Love sit for three years.
Yes, that question seems ridiculous with an offensive line, an alleged strength of the team, that’s in shambles and underperforming.
Yes, that question seems ridiculous when the offense’s best weapon has not played a full game this season.
Yes, that question seems ridiculous when their run game, another alleged strength, has struggled.
And, yes, that question seems ridiculous when the offense is historically young and clearly struggling with understanding what to do and when to do it.
Despite all that, the question needs to be asked.
What if Love is not the quarterback of the future?
It was another long Sunday for Packers QB Jordan Love.
Photo by Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports Images
Nothing about Love’s career has been fair. He didn’t ask to be drafted by a team with an established starting quarterback. He didn’t ask to be in the middle of a public standoff between an organization and its star quarterback.
He certainly didn’t ask for the situation he has been handed.
That is, however, the situation he is in.
The Packers have a decision to make on their quarterback coming soon.
One of Aaron Rodgers’ biggest complaints going into his initial standoff with the team in the winter of 2021 was that he did not want to be a lame-duck quarterback.
That is what Love will be going into next season after the team gave him a meager one-year contract extension in May.
The franchise tag could be an option to make him prove it further, but it’s incredibly rare to see a team make a quarterback they believe in play under the tag.
Thus, more likely than not, the Packers will have to make a big decision on Love – one way or the other – this offseason.
With the team sitting at 2-4, perhaps their record will make their decision for them.
If the Packers had a chance to draft USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye, would they pass?
What if it was Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy? Washington’s Michael Penix Jr.? Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders?
That’s where things could get interesting.
Apart from draft speculation, which is many months away, the Packers' confidence has to be shaken as to whether Love is their long-term answer.
Coming into Sunday’s game at Denver, he ranked last in the NFL in completion percentage and next-to-last in interceptions.
Coming out of Utah State, there were questions about his ball placement and accuracy.
Both of those issues showed up on Love’s final two throws against the Broncos.
On second down, he threw late and behind Christian Watson, the ball landing incomplete and Watson limping off the field with an injury.
On third down, he threw a fluttering duck that became the game-losing interception. His second in as many games.
LaFleur said he wished he had not put Love in that spot.
Regardless of the spot LaFleur put Love in, the throw was inexcusable.
It’s the type of throw that Love had avoided the first two games, but they are becoming more prevalent the more he plays.
His seven interceptions remain second in the NFL, and it’s not like there are a bunch of big plays to offset the turnovers.
According to ESPN Stats and Info, Love is 6-of-27 with three interceptions on throws with 20-plus air yards.
Jordan Love and the Packers lost their third in a row on Sunday at Denver.
Photo by Ron Chenoy/USA Today Sports Images
As Love and LaFleur said after the game, the NFL is built on big plays. Love is making too many big mistakes and too few big plays.
The issues with the deep ball are not solely on Love. The youth at receiver certainly has shown there. Christian Watson has not built off his hot stretch from last season. Romeo Doubs hasn’t made enough impact plays.
That said, the NFL is about quarterbacks. Quarterbacks, fair or not, are expected to elevate those around him.
Love has not.
Since scoring 38 in Week 1 at Chicago and 24 in the first three quarters at Atlanta, the Packers scored zero points in the fourth quarter of the loss to the Falcons, 18 points in a come-from-behind victory over the Saints, 20 points in a lopsided loss to the Lions, 13 points in a loss to the Raiders and 17 points against the Broncos.
Love hasn’t even gotten close to a 300-yard game, his high-water mark the 259 yards vs. New Orleans.
His advanced metrics are even worse. Love was the worst quarterback based on Completion Percentage Over Expected.
The offense has scored 13 points in the first half all season. The only touchdown came on the first drive of the season.
“I think critical errors in these situations, it’s on everybody.” Love said after Sunday’s game. “Not starting a game fast, not putting up points quickly, it comes back to bite us in the end.”
Love is right. The Packers have been better in second halves this season, but in each of their last four games, the offense did not get moving until they were trailing. In three of those four games, the deficits were by two scores.
They’ve won one of those games, but their 1-3 record in the last four games proves that’s a tough way to live.
When the season began, we said plenty about was at stake for the Big 3 of Gutekunst, LaFleur and Love.
One of those Big 3 is squarely under the microscope.
After trending toward establishing himself as the man, Love and the offense are going backward.
Unless Gutekunst and LaFleur let their ego get in the way, Love, their hand-picked successor to Rodgers, is trending toward being one-and-done as the Packers’ starting quarterback.
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