In saying that, I’m not telling you the Packers are about to embark on another 15 years at quarterback like the 30 they just had.
But as far as being up to the task of following a legend? Jordan Love has been all of that.
And he’s done it simply by giving the Packers a familiar feeling: normalcy. And that normalcy was reflected vividly in a text Rodgers sent Love on Sunday morning.
“It was just a little something,” Love said over the phone, a tad sheepishly, before detailing the message his predecessor sent. .
That part was the same as it’s ever been Sunday, too. Brett Favre was 23–13 against Chicago. Rodgers was, famously, 26–5. Love is now 2–0.
Even better, the 25-year-old reached that mark while hitting a bunch of personal high-water marks in going 27-of-32 for 316 yards and two touchdowns in Green Bay’s workmanlike 17–9 win. His completion percentage (84.4%) was a season best, as were his yards per attempt (9.9) and passer rating (128.6). All of which shows two things. One, that, as the Packers expected, he’s a lot better now than when he got his first win over the Bears, at Soldier Field in Week 1. And two, that their patience with him, both through some bumps this year, and over the past four years, was well founded.
The result is a kid, if you still want to call him that, who firmly believes he’s just where he should be in his development and hasn’t really doubted that development was coming along at any point this season—even when he went three straight games with a passer rating under 70, or as the Packers had to ride out a 2–6 stretch that followed the high of that Week 1 win.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s because he got to watch the ebbs and flows of a season three times over before having to live those as a starter, which has given him the benefit that Matt LaFleur and his staff hoped he’d take from waiting—actual sustainable confidence.
“Coming into this year, I came in with no expectations,” Love says. “I wasn’t trying to put a feeling on what we could be as a team, what I could be. I really just came in with a grateful mindset and wanting to take advantage of the opportunity that I had in front of me. That’s kind of the same mindset I kept throughout the season. We had low points. We had high points. I was not trying to put a ceiling on us.”
The ceiling now looks a lot higher than it did three or four months ago.
On Sunday, that much was apparent in not just Love, but the depth of what’s around him. Again without Christian Watson, and with Jayden Reed banged up, the quarterback got six catches and two touchdowns from rookie fifth-rounder Dontayvion Wicks, who’s emerged as a contributor in a crowded group of young receivers (Watson, Reed, Romeo Doubs).
“Those two plays were just big-time plays by him,” Love says. “The first one, just the release, he had to create so much separation from the DB to get wide open and to finish the catch. The second one, just the effort, just running the slant. To get tackled, I don’t know where he got stopped, maybe at the 3, but to be able to put his head down and fight to get those yards into the end zone was huge. Big-time efforts by him.”
And as Wicks, and the other three receivers, and rookie tight ends Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft, have grown, Love has grown with them—with his own trust that it’d come rubbing off. The bumps have been ridden out and the steps have been taken together. The result is a bunch of guys who are pushing each other and making the offense their own.
“That's been a huge part of it,” Love says. “We came into the year knowing that it was going to be a process. It wasn’t perfect early on. We weren’t trying to be perfect. We focused on trying to get better, understand what we need to do on plays. The receivers have been putting in a lot of work just trying to get on the same page with me. I think all the work that we’ve been putting in is finally starting to show.
“It’s definitely not easy with how young we are as a team. It’s a credit to everybody around me and how much work they’ve been putting in.”
It paid off when it mattered most Sunday. When the Bears closed to within 14–9 early in the fourth quarter, a 59-yard shot from Love to Reed set up a field goal to stretch the lead back out to 17–9. And the next time the Packers got the ball after that, with 6:08 left, Love’s group churned out four first downs and never gave it back.
As such, the game ended on a pair of kneeldowns that gave Love something that Rodgers and Favre didn’t have—a playoff berth in his first season starting. For what it’s worth, Love also has thrown for more yards, more touchdowns, and fewer picks than Rodgers did in 2008 or Favre did in 1992.
And, again, that’s not to say Love is headed toward the rarefied air those guys would wind up ascending to.
But what we can safely say now is that he definitely didn’t shrink to the tough task put in front of him last April, after Rodgers was traded, one that was, in so many ways, the football version of taking Derek Jeter’s spot on the infield dirt at Yankee Stadium.
“Pressure’s a privilege,” Love says. “I’m grateful for the opportunity that I have and just want to make the most of it. Blocking out all the noise and not even thinking about how much pressure it might be, just going out there and playing, having fun and taking advantage of the opportunity that I have, that’s just what everybody in the locker room has done. Pressure’s a privilege. We’re blessed to be here. We’re not focusing on the pressure.”
That, by now, is pretty clear.
