Jordan Love Slides to Surprising Spot in Fox Sports’ ‘QB Stock Market’

For Jordan Love to join the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks, he must make significant improvement in one phase of his game.

Jordan Love at Green Bay Packers minicamp / Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With Aaron Rodgers’ signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers, perhaps all the dominos have fallen in the offseason quarterback shuffle.

With the 32 starting jobs perhaps locked up, Henry McKenna ranked them for Fox Sports. Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is 13th overall and only third in the NFC North.

“Love has to do what is theoretically simple but actionably difficult (and boring),” McKenna wrote. “He needs to eliminate bad plays from his repertoire – even if that means losing some of his explosive, highlight-reel plays.”

That, indeed, will be the secret sauce for the remainder of Love’s career. Can Love become a great quarterback rather than a quarterback with great talent?

Thanks to a red-hot finish to his debut season as Green Bay’s starting quarterback, Love finished 11th in passer rating in 2023. What could he do for an encore? Well, he finished 11th in passer rating again in 2024.

“I think there’s like a narrative out there, for whatever reason, that he wasn’t as productive as the year before,” coach Matt LaFleur said during OTAs. “Well, he missed significant time. He missed the better of three games. Really, it was Indy, it was Tennessee, he went out in Jacksonville and then he went out in Chicago.

“So, you know, three games is a significant amount of time, and you’re not going to produce as much from a numbers perspective. From what I’ve seen, and also, let’s be honest, we’ve talked about this, we did have a lot of drops last year, so there’s other circumstances that play into it. I think all in all, everybody’s going to be better, though.”

It’s not just the big-ticket numbers such as yards and touchdowns, which were down due to the loss of playing time. Rather, it was Love throwing 11 interceptions in 425 attempts in 2024 after throwing 11 interceptions in 579 attempts in 2023. He added three more to the tally in the playoff loss to the Eagles.

That’s what McKenna is getting at in reducing the number of bad plays. Of course, there are reasons why Love treaded water last season, starting with the Week 1 knee injury and a midseason groin injury.

After an excellent offseason, perhaps Love is ready to reach the expectations thrust upon him after his sublime stretch run to 2023.

“Yeah, my confidence level is always pretty high, but I do feel each year you come into it, you do gain more confidence,” Love said at minicamp. “Every rep you take, you gain confidence. Obviously, coming back here, going on Year 6, I’ve got confidence every year going through OTAs and understanding the process we’ve got to go through, and now going on my third year starting, I know what we’re expecting, what we need to keep working on to build to get ready for training camp, get ready for the season.

“So, I’m confident and just keep pushing the envelope with everything we do, keep pushing myself, keep pushing the guys, and just try and be as consistent as possible like I said every day. We’ve been getting some great work in throughout OTAs. It’s coming to an end, so we’ll take our time and get back together for training camp. But we’re ready to go. Ready for the season.”

Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes is No. 1, NFL MVP Josh Allen of the Bills is No. 3 and Super Bowl-champion Jalen Hurts off the Eagles is No. 5.

In the NFC North, Love trails the Lions’ Jared Goff, which is understandable after he ranked among the league leaders in passing yards, passing touchdowns and passer rating. Love also trails the Vikings’ J.J. McCarthy, who is 12th even without throwing a pass in his NFL career. Getting to throw passes to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson should help.

“This year, McCarthy might look like 2023 Brock Purdy – an athletic point guard with an idyllic supporting cast,” McKenna wrote.

Love was 10th at the end of the season.

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