Jordan Love – The future in Green Bay
Jordan Love had what I expect to be the performance that secures his future as the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. It is no secret that Love was playing for his job this season, especially when there were some games where the offense and Love just struggled to get going.
But one thing that can’t be overlooked during those games, was the inexperience and youth of this current Packers roster. When Favre and Rodgers took over, they had veterans around them and much more experience throughout the locker room. Love doesn’t have that luxury, however what he is showing is that he can take each challenging experience and learn from it and that is moulding him into the leader the Packers need him to be.
In week 11 he took an almighty step forward with a much improved performance in the win against the Chargers. His first time surpassing 300 passing yards, no errors and confidence inspiring display. But how many people expected him to build upon that against the Lions, the reality is probably not many.
Build upon it he did. The Lions have had the Packers’ number for a couple of years now, but Jordan Love made sure to put a stop to that on Thanksgiving. Love threw for three touchdowns, not far off of 300 yards again and most importantly he took care of the ball. Love from the get go was on the money, he was accurate, aggressive and played with a swagger.
The third quarter saw him produce a pass, that made me say okay, he is feeling it now. Moving right he slings a 12 yard pass back across the field to Malik Heath, he looked so chilled on this throw, which every QB is told not to do. Love made play after play and in this game he looked to have elevated the players around him, a sign also that he is growing into this offense and feeling more comfortable.
A huge tip of the cap has to go to head coach Matt LaFleur. His relationship with Love is obviously growing week to week, but he has started to increase the aggressiveness of his play calling and it is working a treat. They are now 5-6 and if you take away the Chiefs game, the Packers must be looking at the schedule and believing that they can play some January football. The Giants, Panthers and the Bears have to be games in which, if they play anything like they did on Thursday, they will win.
All three phases of the Packers are coming together nicely and something not to forget out of this win was the fact that some notable starters were out and also how impressive the defense played. Jared Goff would be the first to say he had an off night, but Packers D gave him hell.
Rashan Gary had 3 sacks and 2 forced fumbles in the game. You also had Jonathan Owens, the Packers safety, who was literally everywhere. His name was being mentioned on almost every defensive play made by the Packers. So as much as Love lit it up and had what I felt was a coming of age game, Green Bay had impressive performances all over the field.
This young and hungry side was one of my two teams not to sleep on before the season kicked off and I would repeat that message just now. Don’t sleep on the Green Bay Packers, they are lurking just outside of the wildcard spots and they are trending in the right direction. If they hold this standard or even manage to build on it, they will have every chance of being a playoff team and in the playoffs anything can happen.
Regardless of what happens for the rest of this season, I’m confident that Green Bay has found their quarterback. This is only year 1 as a starter and if they can work smartly at adding pieces around him, they can look at cementing themselves as a force over the
coming years. Love has dealt with an almost unimaginable pressure since Rodgers left and he is showing that he has the strength of will to not only deal with that, but to thrive under that pressure.
Exciting times ahead in the new era of the Green Bay Packers.
