Jordan Love Loves One Style; Defenses Won’t Let Him Play It

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Here’s a short story about Jordan Love.

The Green Bay Packers’ $220 million, franchise quarterback has become a dinker-and-dunker, a purveyor of the short passing game.

During the team’s 2-0 start, Love averaged 13.1 air yards per passing attempt, according to Pro Football Focus. That was by far the longest in the league; the Giants’ Russell Wilson was a distant second at 10.8 and the league median was 8.4.

“I’ve said it before, I’m going to be an aggressive quarterback. I love taking shots downfield,” Love said after the Washington game. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in my guys that they’re going to make plays when we get some of these opportunities.”

Defenses quickly caught on. Why let Love drop bombs on the defense when they can force him to shoot spitballs?

According to PFF, 34 quarterbacks have dropped back to pass at least 100 times since the start of Week 3. Love is 30th with an average of 6.6 air yards per attempt.

“It’s always a challenge,” Love said after practice on Thursday as the Packers get ready for Monday night’s home game against the defending Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles.

“If teams want to take the deep ball away, it’s one of those things where you’ve just got to find ways to keep attacking, whether it’s short of the coverage or just checkdowns. Just find ways to get completions. When you do get those opps, take a shot downfield, just maximizing and hitting on those deep balls. It’s always about finding ways to take advantage of whatever the defense is doing, whether it’s staying in shell, playing man, pressuring, whatever it might be.”

In games of 20-plus dropbacks, Love in the …

- Week 3 loss at Cleveland was last out of 31 quarterbacks with 1.7 air yards per attempt.

- Week 4 win tie at Dallas was 28th out of 32 with 5.5 air yards per attempt.

- Week 6 win over Cincinnati was eighth out of 30 with 9.2 air yards per attempt.

- Week 7 win at Arizona was 21st out of 29 with 7.4 air yards per attempt.

- Week 8 win at Pittsburgh was 23rd out of 27 with 5.9 air yards per attempt.

- Week 9 loss against Carolina was 14th of 28 with 9.0 air yards per attempt, though one of those aggressive throws was the bad interception on first down to start the second half.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) passes the ball against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. | Tork Mason-USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

The ill-fated decision against Carolina notwithstanding, Love has been on point for most of the season. He is sixth in the NFL with a 107.9 passer rating. A significantly below-average quarterback in terms of completion percentage his first two seasons, Love is third at 70.8 percent this year.

His 13 touchdowns and three interceptions mean a seventh-ranked 4.33-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. The enormity of the few giveaways he’s had have magnified his mistakes, but Love has the seventh-lowest interception percentage.

“I think he’s done a really good job,” coach Matt LaFleur said on Thursday. “There’s going to be plays that you’d like to have back, where you wish that, ‘Hey, just take the gimme.’ But he’s got a lot of trust in his guys, as well. I think that’s what it says more than anything is, ‘I got the trust that my guy’s going to go up and make a play,’ similar to how Christian did [on the opening possession of] the game.

“So, I think it’s a fine line, because I don’t want to take that mindset from him, but also you just got to be smart and see what the defense is doing. They’re bailing and getting out of there, you just got to take the completion.”

For the season, according to PFF, 22.0 percent of Love’s passes have been thrown behind the line of scrimmage. That’s the fourth-highest rate, sandwiched between the Steelers’ Aaron Rodgers (22.2 percent) and the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes (21.8).

It’s easy to fixate on the deep ball, but the intermediate passing game is interesting. According to PFF, 16.8 percent of Love’s passes have been thrown between 10 and 19 yards downfield. That’s the sixth-lowest rate. Perhaps that’s where Love needs to be unleashed more, as he ranks third in yards per attempt and first with a 151.3 passer rating.

That might be by necessity. So many of Love’s short passes were turned into big gains by tight end Tucker Kraft. With Kraft out for the season, the Packers are going to need to find new ways to create explosive plays.

“I always talk to him about you have to earn the right to throw the ball down the field,” LaFleur said. “So, if they’re going to play off and soft, take all the ones underneath. Typically, what that’ll do is that’ll get teams to tighten up, and then you’ll have your opportunities go down the field.”

It won’t be easy this week. The Eagles, who picked off Love three times in last year’s playoff game, are fourth in opponent passer rating and third in opponent completion percentage.

Last week, the Panthers challenged the Packers’ ability to dink and dunk their way to touchdowns. That’s how the Eagles play under venerable defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.

“I think they wanted a shell over the top of the defense, and not give us some of those explosive plays,” Love said. “You look at the playoff game, and I think we just didn’t hit on some of those big plays, we had some turnovers. So, it always comes back down to that – just taking advantage of some of the opportunities we get.”

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