Jordan Love is a good NFL quarterback. He can make plays that very few players in the league can make, and even in year one as a starter, he proved it. he can hit the road and win a big playoff game. This is no joke, and the Green Bay Packers could have done a lot worse than Love following Aaron Rodgers’ MVP journey with them.

There seems to be a foregone conclusion, however, that the Packers “hit” Love. That means they somehow managed to claw their way into back-to-back (back-to-back) Hall of Fame quarters. From Brett Favre to Rodgers to Love.

Favre is already there and Rodgers has no doubts, but Love hasn’t even made a Pro Bowl yet, let alone won an MVP or Super Bowl. Additionally, and perhaps most painfully for the Packers through 11 weeks of the 2024 NFL season, Love is playing well below the expectations set for him (and the expectations he set for himself) when the Packers signed him to a new contract last offseason. .

This of course all stems from his play in 2023, so there is more than enough reason to believe that Love can be at least a Top 10 quarterback in the NFL. There was a stretch in the 2023 season that saw him throw 18 touchdowns against just one interception while leading the Packers to a 6-2 record during that span.

That hot play was enough to give a young, inexperienced Green Bay team a chance at the playoffs, and all Love did with that shot was hit the road and hit the Dallas Cowboys with 272 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in a Wild Card playoff victory.

That’s when Love seemed to climb the mountaintop of young NFL quarterbacks and the mystical Favre to Rodgers to Love trinity was established. Regardless of the fact that he threw two interceptions in the next game against the San Francisco 49ersincluding one that sealed Green Bay’s loss. Love was supposed to clean up those kinds of decisions before his second season as a full-time starter. There was a legitimate expectation in NFL circles that Love was on his way to becoming an MVP candidate in 2024.

NOW?

Jordan Love failed to meet Packers’ expectations in 2024

We’re 10 games into the Packers’ 2024 campaign and legitimate questions about love have instead arisen. Gone is the Top 10 quarterback from the second half of 2023 and back is the young, reckless “gunslinger” who threw 10 interceptions in the first nine games of 2023.

That’s a ton of interceptions, but he’s already surpassed that number despite only playing in eight games in 2024 due to missing two games due to injury. Love has thrown 16 touchdowns, but that’s compared to 11 interceptions.

And of course, there was a time when Peyton Manning threw 26 touchdowns against 28 interceptions and he became… well… Peyton Manning. But that was in Manning’s rookie season, and that happened in 1998.

Love is still new as a starter, but he’s far from a rookie quarterback. NFL offenses have also become much more sophisticated and the game and its rules have become much more suited to explosive offensive football in 2024 compared to 1998. There is no excuse for a quarterback to be paid 55 million dollars a year to throw that many interceptions.

Love has thrown an interception in eight straight games in 2024. Another way to look at it is that he has thrown a pick in every game he has played. Back to last season’s playoffs: He threw an interception in nine straight games.

Now here’s the problem. It’s worth noting that the Packers are 7-3 and absolutely in the hunt for a playoff spot. They may not be the surefire Super Bowl contender many thought were heading into 2024, but they are absolutely one of the contenders coming out of the NFC alongside the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles. It’s also worth noting that for as many jaw-dropping throws as Love made, he also made throws like that. Or this. You can’t teach that kind of quarterback play.

The Packers were absolutely right to take a chance on Love and offer him a big four-year contract extension, worth $220 million. But if they’re paying him like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, he needs to start playing like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL – consistently.

Making a bad play here or there among several jaw-dropping plays can work against the Chicago Bears, who are bitten by the Packers. But the Packers need Love to play elite football if they want to make the playoffs, let alone upset a team like the Lions or Eagles in the playoffs.

The Packers have all the pieces needed to succeed, but right now they have a quarterback problem. The sooner they and Love can admit this, the sooner they can make appropriate adjustments.

This doesn’t mean that Love should replace Malik Willis (despite his 2-0 record as a starter and his incredible performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars), but it does mean that Love should take a long, hard look in the mirror and start to protect themselves. this damn football.