Love Finally Makes Packers Debut
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jordan Love wasn’t flagged for delay of game on Saturday night, which is noteworthy because his entire rookie season was delayed.
The Green Bay Packers’ first-round pick in 2020, COVID-19 meant Love lost opportunities to grow during the rookie minicamp, OTAs and the mandatory minicamp. Next, the start of training camp was delayed, joint practices were cancelled and the preseason was eliminated.
On Saturday, with a full offseason and ample training camp reps in his back pocket, Love made his long-awaited NFL debut in the preseason opener against the Houston Texans.
“When I was running out of the locker room onto the field, it was just crazy to see all the fans and see the place packed. It was pretty cool to see,” Love said.
Greeted by enthusiastic cheers from the fans when he was announced as the starting quarterback, his performance against the Texans mirrored every step along the way this year. Not surprisingly, there was some good and some not so good as Love dealt with rust, nerves and being surrounded by mostly backups.
More important than the scoreboard and stat line, Love played in a game. It was the first time he led his team into battle since something called the Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl on Dec. 20, 2019. That was 603 days ago.
“Obviously, I think it’s really hard to go without playing a live game that long,” Love said. “I don’t think it felt any different for me going into it. It’s still preparing the same way for the game. Obviously, just knowing that I haven’t played in a while and been live, it just adds a little extra different element to it. But it felt good, it felt good being out there.”
Love was as prepared as possible for the moment. With Aaron Rodgers skipping the offseason, Love ran the offense in May and June, and he’s basically split the reps with Rodgers during training camp. But practice isn’t a game – even if it’s only a preseason game.
“I’d say the biggest difference is you’re live,” he said. “At practice, you’re not getting hit so you’re not worried about taking a sack, getting hit, getting the ball off on time. But in a game, you’ve got that added element, you’ve got to be able to get the ball off on time, see pressures when you’re hot and try not to take those hits.”
There were some strong moments. During his lone touchdown drive, he completed all six passes for 89 yards. The big play was a 34-yard completion to tight end Jace Sternberger. He threw a dart to a streaking Sternberger.
“That felt really good,” Love said.
The drive was punctuated by a much easier throw, a screen to Kylin Hill that the rookie turned into a 22-yard touchdown.
“Man, it felt really good to do that,” Love said. “Wish it wasn’t a screen, but it still felt good to get that first one. That was an awesome run by Kylin. Happy for him, too.”
However, Love threw into double coverage on a third-and-5 to start the game, turned the wrong way on a fourth-and-2 bootleg to kill a promising possession and, late in the first half, dropped a bit too deep was sacked and fumbled away the ball.
“Anytime you take a seven-step drop in the gun, we always tell the quarterbacks if you get beyond 9 1/2 yards, you’re kind of on your own,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “I think he was a little bit deep in his drop, tried to hitch up. We’ve also got to protect better on that left side.”
So long as Love’s throwing shoulder is fine, a potentially big week of growth awaits. The Packers will hold joint practices with the New York Jets on Wednesday and Thursday ahead of Saturday’s preseason game. With the Game 1 jitters out of the way a year too late, perhaps Love will be more apt to let it rip.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of build-up for me to get out there on the field not having preseason last year,” he said. “Yeah, it was definitely fun to get this first one out the way. My plan is to keep building on it and learning from it.”
