Jordan Love (Raj Mehta/USA Today Sports Images)

34 Days Until Packers Training Camp: Plus-34 in Turnovers

With 34 days until the start of training camp, the Packers are plus-34 in turnovers under coach Matt LaFleur.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
Jun 22, 2023 9:09 PM EDT

In this story:

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In 34 days, the Green Bay Packers will conduct their first practice of their 2023 training camp.

In four seasons as coach, Matt LaFleur’s team is plus-34 in turnovers. Even after going just plus-2 in 2022, Green Bay has the second-best turnover margin in the NFL since LaFleur took command in 2019.

Green Bay’s dominance was built on the ruthless efficiency of Aaron Rodgers. His career touchdown-to-interception ratio of 4.52 touchdowns for every interception is No. 1 by an enormous margin. Kansas City Chiefs MVP Patrick Mahomes is second with 3.92 touchdowns for every interception. Rodgers could open the season with 15 consecutive interceptions before his first touchdown and still be ahead of Mahomes.

With the Packers usually scoring a lot of points, they’ve forced opponents to throw the ball. That plays into the strengths of the defense, with a strong pass rush and ballhawking cornerbacks delivering plenty of takeaways.

So, now what, with Rodgers having been traded to the New York Jets?

Rodgers is No. 1 in NFL history with an interception rate of 1.37 percent. Among quarterbacks with at least 1,600 career attempts, Mahomes is second at 1.64 percent. Rodgers could open the season with 20 consecutive interceptions and still be ahead of Mahomes.

Love, meanwhile, has thrown three interceptions in 83 career attempts. With obviously a much, much smaller sample size than Rodgers, Love has a career interception rate of 3.61. That mark would have ranked 31st out of 32 qualifying quarterbacks last season.

Can Love cut back on the killer mistakes? In 2021, he threw three interceptions and fumbled three times in 131 snaps. That’s a turnover/potential turnover rate of one for every 21.8 snaps.

Rodgers, by contrast, threw four interceptions and fumbled three times in 983 snaps in 2021; that’s a turnover/potential turnover rate of one for every 140.4 snaps. He won his fourth MVP and the Packers went 13-4.

In 2022 on the other hand, his 12 interceptions and eight fumbles in 1,068 snaps meant a turnover/potential turnover rate of 53.4 – far worse than his career norm but better than Love’s career mark of 26.2. The Packers, not surprisingly, tumbled to 8-9.

Love played 26 error-free snaps last season. In five practices open to reporters in the spring, he threw three interceptions. Two of those were in 2-minute situations, when he had to force the issue but missed the mark with his throws.

Taking care of the ball, in the world of professional football, is a matter of life and death. Last year, the team that won the turnover battle won 80.0 percent of the games.