Jordan Love 2025 Version

[milani]

Yeah, that’s one of the major aspects of his game that was missing last season with all of his lower body injuries. Even Mina Kimes mentioned it to him this offseason when she was talking to him, asking him why he doesn’t just take off when the defense has their backs turned downfield. He said it was something he was going to focus on more this season.

My primary criticism of Love is that he seems to throw off his back foot far to much. I want to see him set his feet and use the ground to generate more throw strength and accuracy rather than falling backward all the time which is a big factor in his poorer throws.

Even several of those big throws against Minnesota, Detroit, and Dallas in late 2023 that went for big yards and TDs came off the back foot.

 

[milani]

While that may be accurate idk, I see Love in that Top 8-10 area average season, but he’s relatively inexperienced compared to 1-7 rated QB’s. Also I say average season and imo This isn’t an average season at all. Love has a good OL with some nice upgrades and more experience. That OL imo is similar in Pass block but better in Run Block (by design) than 2024 where we finished #8. We are safely in that #6-8 rated feel overall.

Also if players are weapons?
Jordan has an arsenal at his disposal. I have never seen an array of so much versatility and talent. At least since 2010-2011 area. 2025 might not have the Top End players, but it’s distributed very evenly with good players everywhere.

What Love needs to do is start getting on the same page as his receivers. He needs to know where they will be and they need to know where he expects them to be. Rodgers showed this in his career by year 2 or 3 as a starter. Granted that ARod had a plethora of talent and smarts in his receiving corps that was there in the Favre era, but that can come by working with your guys. Peyton, Brees, Montana, and Brady did that every year. In 2023 Love made some epic throws in big games down the stretch. It made for great highlights but when I watched them over and over they made me think of old Joe Kapp with the Vikings who threw up anything and it somehow got results.

 

[tynimiller]

What Love needs to do is start getting on the same page as his receivers. He needs to know where they will be and they need to know where he expects them to be. Rodgers showed this in his career by year 2 or 3 as a starter. Granted that ARod had a plethora of talent and smarts in his receiving corps that was there in the Favre era, but that can come by working with your guys. Peyton, Brees, Montana, and Brady did that every year. In 2023 Love made some epic throws in big games down the stretch. It made for great highlights but when I watched them over and over they made me think of old Joe Kapp with the Vikings who threw up anything and it somehow got results.

I’d argue all but one maaaaaaybe two of his passes in the PS game was off the mark…drops are drops in many cases and nothing the QB did.

 

[milani]

I’d argue all but one maaaaaaybe two of his passes in the PS game was off the mark…drops are drops in many cases and nothing the QB did.

I won't say they were off the mark. But that he put them up there even into coverage. More Brett Favre like than Bart Starr like. Now Joe Kapp was noted for throwing up duck snorts, but for some reason in those few years in Minnesota they found there way into a receivers hands.

 

[OldSchool101]

What Love needs to do is start getting on the same page as his receivers. He needs to know where they will be and they need to know where he expects them to be. Rodgers showed this in his career by year 2 or 3 as a starter. Granted that ARod had a plethora of talent and smarts in his receiving corps that was there in the Favre era, but that can come by working with your guys. Peyton, Brees, Montana, and Brady did that every year. In 2023 Love made some epic throws in big games down the stretch. It made for great highlights but when I watched them over and over they made me think of old Joe Kapp with the Vikings who threw up anything and it somehow got results.

I keep going back to this. When Love came out there was sooo much scrutiny about him. He played at one of the better FCS schools, but they
1. Didn’t Win their Mountain West Conference.
2. Jordan had a high number of INT as a % Of attempts
3. Had instability with serious changes in coaching and player personnel on O at Utah State.
4. Led by a young QB with relatively limited experience with only 2.5 years starting as a College Junior.

I think Question Numero Uno is Will He Translate to the NFL?

YES

Aaron Rodgers (2008-2009)
17-15 W-L
64.2% Completions
58TD-20INT
98.5% Passer rating
0-1 Playoffs

Jordan Love (2023-2024)
18-14 W-L
63.8% Completions
57TD-22INT
96.4% Passer rating
1-2 Playoffs

We sometimes forget that it takes a minute to get acclimated. Here we could also reasonably argue that Aaron Rodgers had a better overall Roster across his 2 first seasons. So for Love to do this with an inferior Roster (after all youngest doesn’t = best) this is actually pretty impressive.

I say all this to offer this. Jordan Love is just getting warmed up. He’s likely nowhere near his best yet. He 100% has an increasing level of experience on his Roster. Also while he has absolutely made several critical mistakes, he likely won’t repeat it or at least we should notice some mitigation of risk there.

For myself, Love has proven most of what you’d want to see. Really his only question mark is can he run clean in a playoff game or can he make that impressive 4th Qtr comeback style Win and play smart doing it and do it against a Playoff Caliber Defense?

 

[gopkrs]

Hopefully he can stay healthy so that we can know. If he can't; then Willis is actually in play imho

 

[thequick12]

Non-throwing hand is probably the best situation, but that thumb still plays a role in receiving the snaps from center.

Yep for sure, and his ability to complete play fakes

 

[tynimiller]

Hopefully he can stay healthy so that we can know. If he can't; then Willis is actually in play imho

Um….of course he is in play, who else would be?

 

[gopkrs]

Um….of course he is in play, who else would be?

I was thinking about our QB of the future.

 

[tynimiller]

I was thinking about our QB of the future.

Oh geesh, Love is the future and Malik even knows this. I get what you’re saying but catastrophe would have to hit to the degree of like career done.

 

[OldSchool101]

Thankfully his surgery sounded relatively minor. It’s not an ideal situation, but I think he’ll play Detroit. Had Love had any less than this 3+ weeks to get ready, I’d be more concerned. I suspect Love will miss these 2 Preseason games, but mostly out of precaution to protect his Finger.

With a healthy Love, imo the worst case with this current Roster is it takes a couple of weeks to gel. I think Watson comes back earlier than anticipated in that October timeframe, so that’s looking like a health “bonus” Thankfully we also have a pair of good TE’s to lean on in the passing game.

I do like the fact that Love won’t have an Aaron Rodgers type incident in Preseason. I don’t think it’s super important to play Preseason as long as he gets some Reps in Practices beforehand.

 

[OldSchool101]

https://x.com/aaronnagler/status/1957849232192184791?s=46

 

[Thirteen Below]

https://x.com/aaronnagler/status/1957849232192184791?s=46

Well, he was right about one thing anyway - it wasn't even close.

 

[OldSchool101]

Well, he was right about one thing anyway - it wasn't even close.

Yes. Don’t underestimate the Pack!

 

[XPack]

To be brutally honest, Love got the right breaks leading to a seemingly dominant performance.

If that Pick 6 stood.... we'd be seeing a vastly different game. There was a near INT a couple plays before too.

He certainly was confident, picked his receivers well, made the right throws and overall showed right signs of progression.

The usual taking foot off the pedal when up can be attributed more to MLF, but Love needs to share a bit more ownership.

 

[tynimiller]

To be brutally honest, Love got the right breaks leading to a seemingly dominant performance.

If that Pick 6 stood.... we'd be seeing a vastly different game. There was a near INT a couple plays before too.

He certainly was confident, picked his receivers well, made the right throws and overall showed right signs of progression.

The usual taking foot off the pedal when up can be attributed more to MLF, but Love needs to share a bit more ownership.

Those two passes are the ONLY two I really have identified in the rewatch of the All22 that he wasn't money or darn near perfect. Even that sideline pass that went through Reed's hands (well contested mind you) was an absolute MONEY BALL toss into a basket by Love but came away with an incompletion.

I think Love looked incredible outside that rushed one that should have been picked and the other that was but saved by penalties all over.

 

[milani]

Those two passes are the ONLY two I really have identified in the rewatch of the All22 that he wasn't money or darn near perfect. Even that sideline pass that went through Reed's hands (well contested mind you) was an absolute MONEY BALL toss into a basket by Love but came away with an incompletion.

I think Love looked incredible outside that rushed one that should have been picked and the other that was but saved by penalties all over.

And had it not been for the defensive holding he may have hit his target.

 

[Magooch]

I thought Love had a really good game overall. At this point, not to say he won't improve any or iron out his game, but I think we are getting to a point where we kind of "know what we've got" in Love. Sometimes he is going to force passes. Sometimes he'll swing for the fences when he just needs an easy completion to move the chains. He will make some high-risk, high-reward type passes more than some of us (or our cardiologists) would care to see.
And IMO that's fine. He's our guy and the good outweighs the bad. Like I said, maybe some of of that will still stand to get ironed out a little, but overall I think we have a pretty good idea what we're going to be getting from Love and have to come to terms with a few head-scratching or nail-biting throws from time to time. He has the ability to make up for it...

so anyhow there were a FEW of those instances yesterday but it's really being extremely critical on my part overall. Both that spring to mind were involving Kraft. Once he just put a little bit too much on it, it was just a step or two ahead of Kraft. The second I think was to Doubs, I believe he was lined up at the X...and it was one of those plays where you could tell as soon as the ball was snapped he was locked in on that read and nothing else. We just needed a short conversion (IIRC it was like 3rd and 2 or something) and he went for the home run. Kraft was open crossing if Love had just waited a split second and wasn't so locked in on Doubs.

But hey. That's basically two throws on the whole game (I was away changing one of my kiddos' diapers on the overturned INT so I didn't actually see that occur lol) and any game where you make 20+ attempts and only have 2-3 "questionable" throws to my eye is a pretty dang good day at the office

 

[Poppa San]

Sometimes he'll swing for the fences when he just needs an easy completion to move the chains. He will make some high-risk, high-reward type passes more than some of us (or our cardiologists) would care to see.

Seems he learned his craft from his predecessor quite well.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

I think a lot of Love's problems could be rooted in the lack of a consistent receiver the team can rely on. Through one game (a terrific sample size) this offense is still overly reliant on explosive plays, which tend to be plays that are due to MLF scheming something and Love buying the time to complete a big pass. This offense lacks (last year and through one game so far) a receiver that can just get open 4-7 yards downfield to give Love a consistent target. Explosive plays are REALLY important, you need those to score a lot of points in this league. But the Packers don't have many 10+ play drives and that makes the offense look jumbled over the course of an entire game.

 

[milani]

I think a lot of Love's problems could be rooted in the lack of a consistent receiver the team can rely on. Through one game (a terrific sample size) this offense is still overly reliant on explosive plays, which tend to be plays that are due to MLF scheming something and Love buying the time to complete a big pass. This offense lacks (last year and through one game so far) a receiver that can just get open 4-7 yards downfield to give Love a consistent target. Explosive plays are REALLY important, you need those to score a lot of points in this league. But the Packers don't have many 10+ play drives and that makes the offense look jumbled over the course of an entire game.

Teams never thought that we had one or two receivers who scared them like a Jefferson, a Dez Bryant, a Julio, a Moss, a Kupp, a Davante, a Jordy. And Love has to be thinking that way, just hoping they each can make a play.

 

[Poppa San]

I think a lot of Love's problems could be rooted in the lack of a consistent receiver the team can rely on. Through one game (a terrific sample size) this offense is still overly reliant on explosive plays, which tend to be plays that are due to MLF scheming something and Love buying the time to complete a big pass. This offense lacks (last year and through one game so far) a receiver that can just get open 4-7 yards downfield to give Love a consistent target. Explosive plays are REALLY important, you need those to score a lot of points in this league. But the Packers don't have many 10+ play drives and that makes the offense look jumbled over the course of an entire game.

Huh? Half the Packers' receptions were <10 yards. It's not like 10 dumpoffs for 31yds like someone else in the game. Even without Gibbs 10, Goff had half his passes less than 10 yds.

 

[milani]

Huh? Half the Packers' receptions were <10 yards. It's not like 10 dumpoffs for 31yds like someone else in the game. Even without Gibbs 10, Goff had half his passes less than 10 yds.

With the high safeties you depend on run after the catch. To counter that the D has to have speed and tackle well. Goff had to throw underneath because of our scheme. By stopping the run his play action was fruitless and due to the pressure from the DL he did not have the time to go long. His 2 best passes were to his TE.

 

[Poppa San]

With the high safeties you depend on run after the catch. To counter that the D has to have speed and tackle well. Goff had to throw underneath because of our scheme. By stopping the run his play action was fruitless and due to the pressure from the DL he did not have the time to go long. His 2 best passes were to his TE.

His TD toss was an over throw saved by an impressive catch.

 

[Thirteen Below]

I think a lot of Love's problems could be rooted in the lack of a consistent receiver the team can rely on.

I've long maintained that it's quite possible we do have one such receiver on this roster, and possibly even a couple. But because we are so deep at receiver, and LaFleur likes to spread the ball around, it's more difficult for them to develop and more difficult for Love to build a chemistry with them.

For most of the last 20-25 years, we only had a couple of guys that were really good in any given year, and they'd see 120, 140, even 170 balls a year - but even then guys like Driver, Jones, and Adams sucked for a couple of years, but Favre/Rodgers kept throwing the ball at them because there was nobody else. Eventually, they learned how to run the routes, get separation, and catch the ball.

This is the first time in the 60 years that I've been watching this team that we've had 5, even 6 receivers that - on any given play - you trust them enough to throw them the ball. The problem with that, it's harder to develop them to their full potential. In 2021, Davante Adams caught 170 passes; in 23, our top WR had 76, and then 2 more WRs and a TE caught around 70. If this were a typical year, and we only had 1 or 2 guys with the ability that our top ~6 receivers have, those guys would be getting at least 120 targets, and they'd be perfecting their craft on a fast track.

I really don't feel we're ever going to find out how good some of these guys are until we trade them or lose them to free agency, and they go to a team where they're one of the top 2 or 3 targets. Ever since 23, I've felt that in 2 or 3 years, we're going to see 1 or 2 of these guys having a great season for another team, and we'll be asking ourselves, "how did we let him get away"?