Love Completes Five Passes at End of Blowout Loss to Saints
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The careers of Green Bay Packers quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love will have at least one parallel.
Both players completed their first career pass against the New Orleans Saints.
In Week 5 of Rodgers’ rookie season in 2005, he replaced Brett Brett Favre late in a 52-3 rout of the Saints. With 5:09 remaining, Rodgers completed his one and only pass attempt – a 0-yard pass to fullback Vonta Leach.
With the Packers hopelessly behind on Sunday, Love replaced Rodgers with 10:46 remaining and directed the final two possessions.
With 9:16 remaining, Green Bay faced a third-and-7 and Love got his first shot at throwing the ball in a regular-season game. Love booted out to his left, floated the ball over an oncoming defender and connected with rookie receiver Amari Rodgers, who made a leaping grab for a gain of 19 yards.
Love added a 3-yard completion to tight end Robert Tonyan but the possession stalled when Marshon Lattimore prevented a third-down completion to Love’s favorite preseason target, Malik Taylor.
Love got one more shot and drove the team into scoring position. On second-and-9, Love found veteran Randall Cobb on a deep crossing route for a gain of 32. On his next attempt, Allen Lazard couldn’t quite hang onto a deep ball at the sideline. Back-to-back completions of 7 yards to Taylor made it first-and-goal at the 5 but Love was sacked and stripped to end the drive and his day.
So, let the history books reflect Love was 5-of-7 passing for 68 yards, good for a passer rating of 102.1, in his professional debut. He was responsible for two of Green Bay’s four longest plays.
“Part of that is him learning how to now prepare to be a starter in this league, where last year he just kind of got to sit back and watch,” quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy said at the end of camp when asked what’s ahead for Love.
“We had Tim (Boyle) in the room to, where he can learn from. Now, it’s his turn to really step up in the room and have a bigger role in our game plan and have a bigger role in finding things for Aaron on film and say, ‘Hey, these are some keys, these are some tips.’ That’s where Jordan’s got to go now – the mental side of it, he’s got to dominate. And then when we’re on the practice field, he’s got to dominate and take advantage of all those repetitions that he’ll get against our defense or in those moments where he’ll take reps for our offense, too. He’s got a lot of work to do, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities to grow mentally and physically as we go through the season to help him prepare for whenever his opportunity is.”
