From Blue Chip to Easily Upgraded: What Tier for Packers QB Jordan Love?
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jordan Love has cemented himself as the Green Bay Packers’ starting quarterback. But is he a blue-chip starter?
Last week, we identified which players on defense could be considered blue-chip players and part of the core for what Brian Gutekunst and his front office hopes is the next Super Bowl championship roster.
In the Move the Sticks podcast, Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks break the roster into four tears. That starts with Blue Chip, or one of the best players at his position, to Building Block, Backup and Easily Upgraded.
Moving onto the quarterbacks leads to a tricky evaluation.
That is fitting, because nothing about Jordan Love's career has been easy.
The news that the Packers picked him in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft sent shockwaves throughout the league and set forth some of the most fascinating storylines in the history of the franchise.
While Aaron Rodgers won two MVP awards and publicly feuded with the franchise that drafted him in April 2005, Love was simply biding his time.
Love admitted that there was some doubt that he'd ever become the starter in Green Bay after Rodgers signed a contract extension in Spring 2022.
“I think the hardest time was when he signed the contract last year,” Love said. “It was kind of like, ‘OK, well, where do we go from here? What do I do?’ I think I just sat back, kind of thought to myself, and just came back with the approach, like, just go ball out. Any opportunity I get – I’m going to get the preseason – who knows what happens after that."
Love took his first chance as a starting quarterback and fought through the ups and downs of being a first-time starter.
Love's first eight weeks had some highs, including an 18-point comeback in his first start at Lambeau Field. There were also some lows, including game-losing interceptions in Las Vegas and Denver.
After losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers to fall to 3-6, the Packers and Love had some soul searching to do.
If the season spiraled out of control, there was a possibility that Love could have been one-and-done as the team's starting quarterback.
Instead, Love and the Packers won six of their final eight games to get to the playoffs as the NFC's seventh seed.
They started their ascent toward the NFC playoffs with a 23-20 win over the Los Angeles Chargers.
Everything changed in the next two games. One win against a lowly Chargers team could be easily passed off as a fluke.
Their next two wins came against the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs. Both teams played for their conference championships, and the Chiefs won the Super Bowl for the second season in a row.
Love was brilliant in that two-game stretch, finishing 47-of-68 passing for 535 yards, six touchdowns and zero interceptions.
Love was able to outduel the powerful Lions' offense and Patrick Mahomes in back-to-back weeks.
Love would parlay those two games into a strong finish.
In the final eight games, Love through 18 touchdowns to just one interception, and helped insert himself into the fringe of MVP conversations by the time the season ended.
Love continued that strong play in the postseason, lighting up the Dallas Cowboys for 272 yards and three touchdowns.
Sure, the clock struck midnight on the Packers' season in the season-ending loss at the San Francisco 49ers, and Love likely has a sour taste in his mouth after throwing two bad interceptions in his final game of the season, but the overall growth from the year proved that Love was the Packers' quarterback of the future. The ultimate building block.
“To lead our team week in and week out and see the rewards at the end of the season, I was very excited for him and our football team. For as good as he played, there’s so much more in front of him,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine.
While Love has proven himself to be the quarterback of the future, and Gutekunst expects to get a contract extension done this offseason, the question for this exercise is what tier do the quarterbacks on the roster fall into.
Sean Clifford impressed in the preseason, and at least looked capable as a backup.
Love, however, is the important question. Quarterback play is everything in the NFL.
Good enough is often not good enough at that position.
Love's final stat line looks gaudy. He threw for 4,159 yards, 32 touchdowns to only 11 interceptions. He finished second in the NFL in touchdown passes behind only Dak Prescott.
The key for Love, however, is consistency. As is the case for all young players in the NFL, they need to prove that they can play at a high level consistently over multiple years.
"When you finish the year playing at a high level," Gutekunst said, "I think you're hoping you get a little bit of a bounce from that, but then it gets real, and everybody has to work and come together, and you realize it's a whole different season and nothing that happened last year really matters too much."
If Love gets that bounce from his first season to his second, he'll be squarely in the conversations with the blue-chip quarterbacks around the NFL.
Players like Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen belong squarely in that conversation.
Love is not there.
... Yet.
