Analysis
10/10/23
6 min read
Jordan Love's Uneven Play Could Cost Packers Chance at NFC Playoffs
The Jordan Love era is only five weeks old but feels like an eternity. Love opened the season throwing three touchdowns in back-to-back games, only to rattle off five interceptions between his last two starts.
His performance against the New Orleans Saints sandwiched in the middle was three and a half quarters of mediocrity before stringing together a promising winning drive.
The highs, the lows and everything in between — we've already seen it all with Love.
Love's Rocky Start
On its own, Love's being all over the place isn't a crime. He's a first-year starter. Some level of unevenness was to be expected, especially with all the other rookies and second-year players littered throughout the offense.
What's concerning is that, despite some of the early flashes, Love is only getting worse the more he plays. While Love was initially imperfect but largely mistake-free, he has become imperfect and mistake-prone.
In particular, Love's past two games have been meltdowns. Love wilted at the hands of the Detroit Lions’ defense with two interceptions in the first half.
Spillane intercepts Love on the first play of the drive!
📺: #GBvsLV on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/ZjjXbjW0ad pic.twitter.com/2yzZN3FMPr— NFL (@NFL) October 10, 2023
Against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night, he spread out his three interceptions more evenly. He threw one straight to a linebacker in the first half, a second to a contested Christian Watson in the second half and a third late in the fourth quarter on an underthrown desperation deep ball to Watson.
The interceptions might be easier to live with if Love were making plays to keep the offense moving, but he's not. That part has been true all season. It just wasn't a problem when he was hitting on the schemed-up shot plays and avoiding interceptions. Some of the inconsistencies in his game that were getting glossed over early on have come to the forefront.
Accuracy Is an Issue
Accuracy has been an issue for Love all season long. Love went 16-for-30 on Monday night, which is about par for the course. Love's completion percentage on the season is 55.6 percent.
He's only had one game above a 60 percent completion rate, which was last week when the Lions half-heartedly let the Packers claw back a few points in the second half.
Furthermore, Love's completion percentage over expected (CPOE) on the season is -5.7, which ranks third-worst, according to NextGenStats.
Love's ball placement alone is a problem, but the accuracy woes go deeper than that. Love isn't seeing things well, and it's only gotten worse.
In the first two weeks, Love was firing in some tough throws with impressive timing and confidence, especially over the middle. That confidence and ability to throw on time has only waned in the past three weeks.
You see Love holding onto the ball too long. He's double-clutching on throws he should be making and firing late into contested windows. Nothing about his play right now feels like it's put together. The numbers back up the eye test on that, too.
Per NextGenStats, 25.8 percent of Love's attempts have been into tight windows. Now, some of that can be tied to an inexperienced and incomplete skill group, but a lot of it still falls on the quarterback.
The rest of the top-10 list in that stat is a wasteland of some of the league's worst quarterbacks, except for Josh Allen, who is allowed to operate with his own set of quarterbacking rules.
Considering Love's accuracy issues, that's a tough way to live.
How to Fix Love
The question on everyone's mind is clear: How do the Green Bay Packers fix Love? I'd argue the question is less about how and more about when.
The reality with Love, and with this young Packers offense at large, is that this was going to take time. Love has had years on the bench to develop real quarterback skills, but there's a difference between practice and live bullets. Love hasn't been a starting quarterback since 2019 at Utah State.
Everyone around him is just a baby, too. Green Bay's entire receiver room comprises rookies and second-year players, none of them first-round talents. The same goes for the tight end group. Three of the Packers' four tight ends are rookies.
You can find talent among those two groups — namely Watson and Luke Musgrave — but it's a terribly inexperienced collection of players. They don't have any answers that veteran pass-catchers might typically provide a young quarterback trying to find his sea legs. Everyone is trying to learn how to be a pro on the fly.
That's why the Love experiment isn't about reconfiguring the formula to make him work. The Packers are already hitting a lot of the right buttons. They're running the ball, mixing in some easy throws and doing their best to cook up play-action shots down the field.
Jordan Love on passes thrown over 5 yards tonight:
3-of-11
3 interceptions
-0.78 EPA/att
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 10, 2023
The offense is distilled in a way that should make life easier for a young quarterback. It's just been a challenge to get Love and the other bright-eyed players around him to execute.
Love Could Sink Packers' Playoff Hopes
This isn't a significant impediment to the Packers’ long-term plan. It was clear from the outset that the Packers would give Love a season-long trial. Surely, they knew a stretch like this was on the table for a quarterback and offense with so little experience.
There are still three months of the season left and plenty of time for things to turn around and for Love to show why he should be the guy.
In the short term, Love's sputtering play puts the Packers' playoff hopes at risk. The Packers sit at 2-3, with one of their wins coming against a putrid Chicago Bears squad in Week 1.
Assuming Love doesn't suddenly flip the switch next week, the Packers’ season may end up too far behind the eight ball to salvage when it comes together. That's not the worst outcome for a Packers team that was a long shot to make the playoffs anyway, but it hurts nonetheless.
The more Love plays, the clearer the picture will get. Things are unraveling, but Love's leash is much longer than five games.
The Packers entered a marathon, not a sprint. We can revisit the Packers quarterback question in December once Love has had the time to prove his mettle.
Derrik Klassen is an NFL and NFL Draft film analyst with a particular interest in quarterbacks. Klassen’s work is also featured on Bleacher Report and Reception Perception. You can follow him on Twitter (X) at @QBKlass.
