Love Ready to Learn Behind Rodgers
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jordan Love’s past includes his brutal 17-interception final season at Utah State. His future includes an uncertain relationship with Aaron Rodgers.
Love, the Green Bay Packers’ first-round pick on Thursday night, is following in the footsteps of Rodgers. In 2005, Rodgers was the team’s top pick and was given the cold shoulder by legendary veteran Brett Favre, who didn’t see it as his role to mentor his presumed successor. Rodgers has been a willing mentor to all of his backups over the years, but this is different. The likes of Matt Flynn, DeShone Kizer and Tim Boyle posed no challenge to Rodgers’ status atop the depth chart. Eventually, unless he falls on his face, Love will knock Rodgers off that lofty pedestal.
“I’m not sure how that’s going to work,” Love said during a conference call conducted not long after the calendar had turned to Friday. “I’m going to get back here and learn as much as I can from Aaron. He’s an amazing player and I know I’m going to learn a lot from him. I’m not sure how that situation is going to work but like I said I’m just excited to be behind him and do whatever the team needs when I’m asked (called) upon.”
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Love literally grew into a top NFL prospect. He had a growth sport from his days at Liberty High School in Bakersfield, Calif., going from 5-foot-6 and 140 pounds to 220 pounds by his freshman year at Utah State. It took place a bit too late for recruiters to pay much attention, though. He didn’t receive a single scholarship offer from a Power 5 school.
That wasn’t Love’s only obstacle on his path to the draft. When Love was 14, his father – a police officer in Bakersfield, Calif. – committed suicide.
“I got through it with my family and also my friends, and teammates and football,” he said. “I was able to lean on them and it helped me get through it. But I know if my dad was here, he’d be super proud and just have a lot of good things to say right now.”
At Utah State, Love redshirted in 2016, started half the season in 2017 and had a record-setting 2018 with 3,567 passing yards, 32 touchdowns (vs. only six interceptions) and seven games of 300-plus passing yards. In 2019, with coaching and personnel changes, his numbers dipped to 3,402 passing yards, 20 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.
“I was just trying to force balls and do too much and just trying to make plays when plays didn't need to be needed,” he said. “Just forcing a lot of bad throws, bad decisions and trying to force balls in those tight windows when I could have checked it down and lived to fight another day.”
Rodgers is the NFL’s all-time master of not making bad decisions, not forcing balls into tight windows and living to fight another day. No quarterback in NFL history has a lower interception percentage and better touchdown-to-interception ratio than Rodgers.
“He’s a nice-sized kid, he’s a really good athlete,” said general manager Brian Gutekunst, who watched Utah State’s game at LSU this season as well as the Senior Bowl. “He’s a natural thrower, he’s got a strong arm, can make all the throws, has the ability to create and make a lot of second chances to throw the ball. Certainly, he’s got to clean some of that stuff up. But we thought he had the kind of skill-set that could play up here and will have a chance to be a pretty solid quarterback in the National Football League.”
Putting the interceptions aside – not that that’s easy to do – it’s easy to see why Gutekunst thought so highly of Love that he didn’t just draft him in the first round but he sacrificed a fourth-round pick to make sure he got him. He’s athletic, owns a strong arm and possesses the ability to create on second-reaction plays.
“I’m a playmaker. I’m always ready to make plays, whatever’s needed,” he said. “I’ve got a really good arm, I’d say. A lot of confidence in that and just a lot of confidence in my ability to make plays as a quarterback. And, obviously, I’m going to come in here and work and continue to get better and improve my game.”
