The Eagles and Packers are gearing up for an epic showdown in South Philly this Sunday that will go down in the annals of NFL lore as the “Love Hurts” game. O.K. I just made that up but as of right now it kind of works.  Because while there’s plenty to love about Jalen Hurts, there’s plenty that hurts about Jordan Love, yes, aside from his right arm.

Love at First Sight

I put a poll in the field last night to gage the temperature of Eagles’ fans as the Birds prep for the Packers- expectations, optimism, biggest fear etc.  What I learned is that there’s a pretty big faction of Birds’ fans out that are concerned about Green Bay’s franchise quarterback, the “elite” Jordan Love.  That’s right, there is a belief out there that Jordan Love is an “elite” quarterback.  To be honest I don’t get it.  He’s a nice quarterback who opened some eyes last season when he went into Dallas in the Wildcard round and dropped almost half a hundy on the Cowboys.  But then he and the Packers advanced to the divisional round and had the 49ers on their heels with a 21-14 lead late in the 3rd quarter.  But Love hurt his team’s chances when he threw a bad pick late in the third quarter that led to three San Francisco points and then threw another with :52 seconds left in regulation, just needing a field goal to send the game into overtime.  If you’re keeping score at home in the two biggest of games in 2023, Love was 1-1.  But for his first time out not a bad effort.  

 O.K. back to his throwing arm.  Love was pulled from the season finale with the Bears after taking a hit that left his right arm without feeling temporarily.  He was limited in practice on Wednesday so it sounds like the injury is a little worse than initially thought.  Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said that Love was available to return to the game last Sunday but thought better of it after witnessing his best vertical threat, Christian Watson get carted off in the second quarter with a non contact knee injury.  After practice on Wednesday when asked about his status for Sunday’s game Love said. “We’ll see.”

And that’s the problem I’m having right now when I hear all of this national and now local love for Jordan Love.  If I have a strong opinion I will always try to support it with empirical data.  Yeah, I tried that I’m still at a loss.  So when all else fails I default to the eye test.  What are my eyes telling me?   My eyes tell me that Love is a quarterback quite possibly on the come who can look lights out for short controlled stretches, but who can also look wildly inaccurate and a little too aggressive sometimes.   He needs to understand that this isn’t the Mountain West Conference any more.  This isn’t a sunshine and palm tree environment where the windows stay open longer.  The NFL is a cold and bitter place where windows close quickly and the earth spins faster, just like your head until you are able to decipher what exactly the heck you’re looking at, all the while asking yourself why the defenses at this level are allowed to play with 15 guys.

Love Boat

Love struggled in his first nine games as a full-time starter last year, throwing 10 interceptions in a seven game stretch as the Packers fell to 3-6.   But he was sensational down the stretch. Starting with the Week 11 victory over the Chargers through last year’s blowout playoff win over the Cowboys, Love was second with 21 touchdown passes and first with one interception. To put that into perspective, of the 12 quarterbacks with at least 12 touchdown passes during that span, none had fewer than four interceptions. 

But in the regular season you drive for show and in the playoffs you putt for dough and those two “get rich” games landed Love with a four year contract worth $220 million.  He finished last year with 32 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

This year Love missed two games because of a leg injury and finished with 25 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.   While his INTs are the same in two fewer games than last year, Love once again got off to a statistically horrific start as he threw at least one pick in the first eight games he played in 2024.  He’s the first quarterback with one or more interceptions in each of his first eight games since the Broncos’ Case Keenum did it in 2018 and the first Packers QB to do that since Irv Comp put up those dubious numbers back in 1944. Love’s eight consecutive games with an INT is the longest streak at any point in a season for a Packers quarterback since Brett Favre, who threw picks in 12 straight games from 2005-06.  Imagine my surprise.

But since November 17th he’s thrown nine touchdowns and zero interceptions and has made a serious effort to change the narrative of being labeled  a “bad decision waiting to happen.”

So another strong finish for the Packers latest franchise quarterback right?  Not so fast.  Being a franchise quarterback still comes down to wins and losses and you are judged by how you play in big games and you are compensated nicely for that pressure.  So let’s take a look inside the anatomy of Love’s second season as the Packers’ quarterback.

The Packers have the best record of any #7 seed as they finished the 2024 regular season campaign with an 11-6 record.  Last season the Packers were also the #7 seed in the NFC finishing with a 9-8 record.  When Love started this year the Packers went 9-6 versus 9-8 in 2023.

Love Actually

But his record against playoff teams this season is just 2-5, with victories coming over the Houston Texans (10-7) and Los Angeles Rams (10-7).  But the five losses are what, in my opinion, keeps him out of the pantheon of elite quarterbacks in the league.  All five losses came at the hands of the blue bloods of the NFC.  The Packers are 0-4 against both of their top two division rivals, the Vikings (14-3) and the Lions (15-2) and the they also dropped game one to the Eagles in the season opener (14-3) back in early September.

In those five losses this season,  Love either did not play at a very high level or showed up late to the game, or both.

Against the Eagles in the season opener, up 26-24 in the 3rd quarter, Love threw an interception to Reid Blankenship deep in his own territory which the Birds quickly turned into seven points to take the lead for good.  Love vs top teams 0-1.

In Green Bay’s first loss of the season to the Vikings, Minnesota squeaked out a 31-29 victory but upon a closer look, Love threw two first half interceptions that led to a Minnesota 28-0 lead with still over five minutes left in the first half. Love, tardy and 0-2 vs top teams.

In the Packers first loss of the season to Detroit 24-14, Love did not throw a touchdown pass but he did throw an ill-advisd pick six to Lions’ safety Kerby Joseph with :32 seconds left in the first half and the Lions took a 17-3 lead into the locker room. Detroit got the ball first in the second half and a Jahmyr Gibbs 15 yard burst up the middle gave the Lions a 24-3 lead midway through the third quarter.  Love finished the game with a quarterback rating of 69.7, his lowest QBR of the year and was tardy once again.  Love: 0-3 vs top teams in 2024.

In their second loss to Detroit 34-31, Love was just 12/20 for 206 yards and a touchdown as he came up short again against the cream of the NFC.  Love: 0-4 vs top teams.

Then just two weeks ago in a huge rematch with Minnesota, the Packers once again lost by just a deuce, 27-25, but Love and his squad found themselves down big once again 27-10 in the 4th, before they scored the final 15 points to make the outcome look closer than it really was.  Love, late once again to the party as he wrapped up his top team’s tour with an abysmal bagel against five losses.

Then of course, in their disastrous season finale against the Bears, a team that hadn’t won a game since week six, the Packers found themselves in an 11 point hole, 14-3 in the 2nd quarter at Lambeau Field.  Love was still in the game at that point.  He hurt his arm on the next series after the Bears had built that 11 point lead.

In his first two seasons as Green Bay’s full time starting quarterback the word “elite” is quite the stretch.  At the NFL level being an “elite” quarterback would put you an exclusive circle alongside big names like Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Goff and Stafford and McKee.  O.K. maybe we should pump the brakes on Tanner McKee but hey it’s early and it’s early for Love too.  But it gets late very early in the NFL postseason and if you are late to the game you might just want to leave the bus running

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