Green Bay Packers: Former first-round pick Jordan Love made his first NFL start against the Kansas City Chiefs, but what should we make of it?
If you haven’t heard about Aaron Rodgers missing the Green Bay Packers‘ game against the Kansas City Chiefs, you either are a new football fan or you live under a rock because it has been all anybody has been talking about. Not only will Rodgers miss this game, but the earliest he can come back will be November 13, the day before the Packers host the Seahawks.
With Aaron Rodgers being out, that opened the door up for what — or who — will possibly be the Green Bay Packers’ future — Jordan Love. Love was a 1st round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft out of Utah State, and boy was it a controversial pick.
Just about any and every Packers fan and analyst were expecting the Packers to take a receiver in the NFL Draft, and while many of them were off the board by the time the Packers pick came around, nobody expected the Packers to take a QB.
Green Bay Packers: What to make of Jordan Love’s first start
If you haven’t seen Jordan Love play in college, let me give you a little summary of what Love was like at Utah State. Love is like Rodgers in the fact he is a playmaker. For a lack of a better phrase, Love loves to move around in the pocket and get outside the pocket to create plays. With his mobility Love has shown the ability to have some great touch on his passes. Love even has a great arm on him and can hit almost any throw on the field.
While Love has all the tools to make just about any play on the field, he struggles when it comes to some of the things that don’t involve the physical aspect of playing QB. Love really struggled with decision-making at times as he just threw far too many passes that didn’t belong being thrown in the first place.
While making your first career NFL start in the middle of the season probably isn’t the most ideal situation for any QB, starting against the Kansas City Chiefs defense may be the best situation for any QB. According to rbsdm.com, the Kansas City Chiefs have the 3rd highest EPA per play allowed, the 4th highest rushing EPA and the 4th highest Passing EPA. I think it’s fair to say that the Chiefs’ defense is one of the worst in the NFL.
Heading into this game, I think it’s fair to say that Love has some decent expectations with him sitting behind Rodgers for over a year and with him playing against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, but in his 1st half, Love struggled quite a bit at times. Love didn’t get a ton of passing opportunities as the Green Bay Packers mainly ran the ball in their first couple of drives.
The main passing opportunities that Love had in the first half were either check downs, screen plays, or just simple short passes. It was clear that Love was a little nervous in the first half, and fairly so. Utah State Jordan Love made a quick appearance when he scrambled outside the pocket and heaved a very risky pass down the field.
Love did get a ton of help from his defense, who made multiple stops against the Chiefs offense but received zero help from his special teams as they had a field goal blocked, a missed field goal, and a muffed punt which resulted in the Chiefs getting the ball inside the 10. The half would end with the Chiefs up 13-0.
The 2nd half wasn’t a great start for Love either. The first drive for the Packers resulted in Love coming under pressure on one snap, and then following that snap, Love was not expecting the snap while he was walking up to the center, which resulted in him muffing the snap. The Green Bay Packers followed up the 2nd drive by being forced to punt after Love was put under pressure twice in a row.
While Love struggled a little bit in his first couple of drives in the 2nd half, Love really started coming alive in his 3rd drive. He started it off by hitting Davante Adams on a 15+ yard throw outside the numbers before completing three consecutive passes. After what was a good drive where Love completed 7 passes and converted on 4th down, he would miss two passes in a row and would slightly overthrow a jump ball which would be intercepted by L’Jarius Sneed.
After getting within scoring rang a couple of times, the Packers finally managed to score their first points of the game as Daniel Sorenson gets beat in coverage and misses the tackle on Allen Lazard.
Outside of the TD, the drive was a bit of a struggle for Love as he missed a wide-open Davante Adams for a touchdown earlier in the drive and missed his other receivers a couple of other times. With the Lazard touchdown, the Packers were down 13-7, but unfortunately for Love, he didn’t get the ball back as the Packers would fall to the Chiefs 13-7.
In Love’s first NFL start he flat out struggled. Love missed multiple throws, should have had more than one interception, and even had some ball placement issues, and while there were only a few positives, namely Love’s ability to avoid sacks and flashes of his arm strength, the negatives far outweighed the positives by quite a bit.
While the negatives were far more noticeable, it was Jordan Love’s first NFL start. Yes, Love played against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, but he has never started a regular-season NFL game and he was taking over for one of the best QBs in NFL history who just tested positive for COVID.
It’s fair to criticize Love because he did struggle, there is no getting around that, but there were some positives, and just remember, it was his first start.