If you want to see the massive jump that Jordan Love and this Packers offense has made, go back and watch Green Bay’s Week 8 matchup with Minnesota and compare it to what we saw in Week 17. It was night and day.
The first time around, the Packers lost 24-10, dropping their fourth consecutive game. They were stuck in the midst of a stretch where they were struggling to put up any points in the first half. Love finished the day 24-of-41 at just 5.6 yards per attempt with a touchdown and an interception. This past week, offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich called the performance the “lowest point” for the Packers’ offense.
Fast forward to Sunday night, and the Packers offense we saw on the football field was nearly unrecognizable compared to where they were in the early to middle portions of the season. For the second straight game, Green Bay eclipsed 30 points. Love was an efficient 24-for-33 at 7.8 yards per attempt with three touchdowns, and was the definition of in control, even when pressure was in his face.
“It’s a lot of hard work that’s been put in,” said Matt LaFleur post-game. “We’ve evolved as an offense, obviously there’s a learning curve any time you’ve got a bunch of young players and trying to figure out what everybody does well. It’s a credit to everyone involved from our assistance coaches down to our players.
“I think Jordan Love, I can’t say enough great things about him. Just his ability to hang in there versus some tough looks. Drifting away from pressure. Putting the ball in play. Allowing his guys to go make plays. I think he’s playing at an incredibly high level. Super happy for him because he’s put in a ton of work to get to this point.”
Improved play on offense during this second half of the season started with less chaos around Love. The offensive line play, in both pass protection and in the run game improved, as did the reliability of the Green Bay pass-catchers after being plagued by dropped passes and running wrong routes early on in the year. All of this played a role in Love’s improved accuracy and the offense’s ability to generate chunk plays, which often equates to more points.
A few weeks back, quarterbacks coach Tom Clements discussed Love’s decision-making, specifically, knowing when to take the checkdown versus throwing deep or where to go with the ball when under pressure, as the area where he has improved the most on the season. We saw this element on display, along with Love’s ability to make adjustments pre-snap, against the blitz-heavy Vikings’ defense that he picked apart.
Contributing to the overall improved play on offense is the trust that has developed between LaFleur and Love, leading to more autonomy at the line of scrimmage, along with the coaching staff having a better understanding of where each player excels, and consistently putting them in positions to thrive. When players not only know their role within the play, but the why behind it, where their teammates are supposed to be, and how defenses are going to defend them, it leads to a higher level of execution.
As the offense has become more consistent, it’s allowed LaFleur to dive deeper into his playbook, dialing up more looks and concepts for opposing defenses to contend with. Without progress and everyone executing on their core responsibilities, this can’t happen.
“There’s a lot of good communication throughout the course of the week,” said LaFleur.” Understanding why we are calling certain things and what we are trying to get to. I think what’s been the biggest difference is the trust, in terms of the trust I have in him, when it’s not the right look to go out there and not make a bad play worse, or get us out of a bad play.
“Just him playing the position. He does such a great job of reading whatever concept we have called for what the defense presents and just going through it, and just playing it true. I think he’s done a really good job. Tom Clements deserves a lot of credit for his ability to groom him and the work that Jordan’s put in.”
Despite the loss to Pittsburgh in Week 10, LaFleur said that he felt like that was a turning point for Love and the offense. Since then, Love has completed 68.2 percent of his throws for 1,834 yards at 7.4 yards per throw with 16 touchdowns to one interception. He’s also been one of the most effective quarterbacks during that span on pass attempts of 20-plus yards—another example of the progress Love has made with downfield passes giving him issues early on.
“I know we didn’t win that game,” said LaFleur of the Pittsburgh game, “but I was cautiously optimistic when we came out of that game in terms from an offensive standpoint that we were executing some things and he was making some plays. I know the ending didn’t go the way we wanted it to but there was a little bit of a shift in terms of some of the things we were doing and allowing him to go out there and be obviously the playmaker that he is definitely capable of being.”
Love has been able to put these performances together all while being shorthanded at the skill positions. Over these last seven games, at various points, Green Bay has been without Christian Watson, Luke Musgrave, AJ Dillon, Aaron Jones, Dontayvion Wicks, and Jayden Reed, with LaFleur saying this past week that dealing with these injuries, on top of everything else that comes with playing quarterback, makes everything that Love has been able to do all the more impressive. Not to mention that Love has collectively the youngest offense in football around him.
Obviously as the season progresses, things change – whether positively or negatively – and so do the expectations. Right now, the expectations have become that the Packers make the playoffs with them controlling their own destiny and being just one win away.
However, if we rewind back to August, the ultimate goal of this season was to find out if Love could be the Packers’ quarterback in 2024 and beyond. Well, that box has been checked with a resounding yes. Not only does Green Bay have their quarterback, but Love has shown that he can be one of the best at the position.
“I really think the sky’s the limit for him,” said LaFleur. “He’s just showing a glimpse of what he can ultimately be.”
