Mad Bomber 2.0: Packers Winning with Jordan Love’s Throwback Style

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In the 12th round of the 1963 NFL Draft, the Green Bay Packers selected quarterback Daryle Lamonica. With Bart Starr leading the Packers, Lamonica opted to play in the AFL. With the Oakland Raiders, he became known as The Mad Bomber.

In the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, the Packers selected quarterback Jordan Love even with Aaron Rodgers on the roster. If watching from the Big Football Field in the Sky on Thursday night, Lamonica might have smiled at Love’s performance in the victory over the Washington Commanders.

According to Pro Football Focus, Love averaged a Mad Bomber-esque 15.0 air yards per attempt. According to Next Gen Stats, the average was 14.5 yards per attempt, with 22.6 percent of his passes traveling 20-plus yards downfield.

Using Next Gen’s numbers, Love’s air yards per attempt would have been the fifth-highest last season. The Colts’ Anthony Richardson held the top three spots, including 16.5 air yards per attempt in the first game against Houston and 16.1 in the rematch. The deep percentage would have ranked 12th; Love had the fifth-highest mark last season at 26.1 percent against San Francisco.

For some additional context, Washington’s Jayden Daniels represented the league median last season with 7.39 air yards per attempt.

According to Stathead, since the start of the 2020 season, there have been only 15 games in which a quarterback averaged at least 14.5 yards per attempt. How rare is that? During that span, there have been 2,584 instances of a quarterback throwing at least 20 passes in a game.

Love has the top two marks at this early stage of the season.

Love is a bit of a throwback with his aggressive style. In today’s NFL, with offenses focusing on completing passes, moving the chains and getting the ball to their playmakers in space, and defenses playing with two deep safeties to keep a lid on things, quarterbacks don’t throw the ball downfield as much as in past seasons.

The NFL has air-yards data going back to 2006. That season, Brett Favre represented the league median with 8.75 air yards per attempt. Five quarterbacks averaged more than 10 air yards per attempt, led by Michael Vick’s 11.65.

Last year, Love led the NFL with 8.84 air yards per attempt.

“I’ve said it before, I’m going to be an aggressive quarterback. I love taking shots downfield,” Love said after the team improved to 2-0. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in my guys that they’re going to make plays when we get some of these opportunities.”

Washington’s defense was focused on taking away running back Josh Jacobs. So, rather than playing with two deep safeties, they frequently added a safety into the box to stop the run. That meant a green light to air it out early and often.

“To that point, it all plays into what coverage we’re getting and what play we’ve got,” Love continued. “I think Matt’s been doing a great job of dialing stuff up and we’re getting great looks to take some of those shots. Like I’ve said before, it’s that fine line of taking a shot vs. checking it down and picking up some more yards if it’s not there. Just got to keep finding that but I’m going to always be aggressive and try to throw it deep.”

Throwing it deep is the ultimate risk-reward style of offense. The reward is obvious – big plays, with big plays frequently leading to points. The risk is obvious, too, and was seen at times against the Commanders.

“Offensively, it was kind of feast or famine a little bit, too many three-and-outs,” coach Matt LaFleur said, “and then having opportunities where, whether it was the call or not executing or doing things, to put us in a bad situation. I think there’s opportunities we need to capitalize on if we want to become the team I think we can become.”

“Feast or famine” is the price of doing business with so many low-percentage throws. LaFleur wouldn’t criticize Love for the approach, though.

“If the play calls call for you to go throw the ball downfield, it is what it is,” LaFleur said.

Love was just 2-of-7 for 60 yards on passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield. He could have put up huge numbers had he not missed Golden twice, first an underthrow for what should have been a 33-yard touchdown on fourth down on the opening possession and then an overthrow of what might have been a 92-yard touchdown in the second quarter.

However, in the intermediate game, Love was 6-of-7 for 112 yards and one touchdown on passes thrown between 10 and 19 yards downfield.

What’s undeniable is big plays lead to points. Love’s 57-yard completion to Tucker Kraft was the big play of Green Bay’s first touchdown drive, Malik Heath’s big-time 37-yard catch moments after the overthrow to Golden kick-started the second touchdown drive and Luke Musgrave’s 23-yard catch set up a field goal. The catches by Heath and Musgrave were Love’s deep completions.

“I think that just comes down to the defense we’re going against, the scheme we’re going against and Matt doing a good job of trying to find ways to exploit that,” Love said. “I think coming into it vs. some of the coverage that they’re running, we had some opportunities to run by them and take some big shots.

“I think we just missed on a couple of them but it’s plays that are there to be made we’ve just got to find a way to hit going forward, but I think it all just comes down to playing what the defense is giving us and trying to take advantage when we get a favorable coverage or matchup on some of the plays we got called.”

Numbers are numbers. Really, the only numbers that matter are displayed on the scoreboard. The aggressive approach has resulted in Green Bay scoring 27 points in back-to-back wins against teams that went a combined 27-7 last season.

“We still left a couple of those big shots out there that we’ve got to find ways to hit on going forward, but I think it’s nice when you put up 400 yards,” Love said of Green Bay finishing with 404 yards, including 292 through the air.

“It’s very cool so we’ve got to keep building on that. Just the way we started the season as an offense and putting up a good amount of points, it’s fun. It’s fun. We’ve just got to keep building on it.”

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