Packer Central

Confident Love Changed Career Fortunes at Eagles in 2022

Jordan Love reintroduced himself to the football world in relief of Aaron Rodgers at Philadelphia in 2022. On Friday night, he’ll lead the Packers against the Eagles to start the 2024 season.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) celebrates his touchdown pass against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) celebrates his touchdown pass against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022. / Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Unless you’re Jordan Love.

With Aaron Rodgers out with COVID for a 2021 game at Kansas City, Love made his first NFL start. It was a disaster. The Packers lost 13-7. Their only third-down conversions and only points of the game came during the final possession. He went 7-of-18 when blitzed with a feeble 2.2 yards per attempt.

Fifty-five weeks later, Love changed his NFL fortunes.

With Rodgers knocked out of the game with injured ribs, Love came off the bench. In two series, he was 6-of-9 passing for 113 yards and one touchdown and led the Packers to 10 points. If not for one of the more embarrassing defensive performances in franchise history, Love might have been the hero of the game.

While the Packers lost 40-33 in his national reintroduction, Love’s 10-play cameo served as confirmation that all of his behind-the-scenes growth had him ready to replace Rodgers.

“There’s always nerves,” Love, who is getting ready to face the Eagles for a Week 1 showdown in Brazil, said after Sunday’s practice. “And I think every more when you’re a backup, the starter gets injured, you’re coming in, and the starter is Aaron Rodgers, too.

“So, there’s definitely nerves, and you just want to go out there and perform your best — perform your best for the guys around you. And it’s tough. You don’t get those reps throughout the week (that) the starter gets, so this might be your first time running some of these plays. And that’s how it was for me in the Eagles game – my first time running some of the plays we ran. But there’s always nerves, but even more (in that situation). Away environment, Philly’s a crazy stadium to play at. So, there was definitely a lot of nerves.”

There will be nerves on Friday night, as well.

It’s Week 1. Against a fellow Super Bowl contender. An historic game. Primetime.

But Love has made 19 starts since that night in Philadelphia. Love, like Rodgers so many times before, dominated the Chicago Bears in a Week 1 statement. Most of the remainder of the first half of the season seemed to create more questions than answers, but Love delivered an emphatic statement during a dominant second half of the season. He thrived in pressure-packed games to rally the Packers into the playoffs, then demolished the Dallas Cowboys in the wild-card round.

“Week 1 last year, there was a lot going on,” Love said. “It was my first year starting, there was so many question marks – surrounding me, surrounding the team. So, I definitely wanted to go out there and have a great performance (and) I think we did that.

“It’s a stressful situation, but I trusted myself and was confident in my ability and just treated it like another game for me. Had to really go back to my college days and my mindset for getting ready for gamedays and things like that, because it’s a been a long time where you’re not really processing, ‘OK, I’m starting this game off and taking the first snap.’ And being on the sideline kind of being able to see what the defense is doing while the starter’s out there, so it’s different. But, yeah, having that year under my belt makes it easier this year.”

At midseason last year, with the Packers in the middle of a losing streak fueled by his turnover-prone play, Love looked like a potential one-and-done quarterback. Now, he’s an NFL MVP favorite with the sixth-shortest odds to win the award at FanDuel Sportsbook.

With Love bursting onto the scene alongside a dynamic group of young pass-catching threats, the Packers have reason to be thinking big entering this season.

“I think a lot more confidence from the whole team,” he said. “Offensively, I feel like we’re at a really good point. We had a good training camp, and now we’re ready to start the season. So, I’m very excited about it, but I think definitely having more confidence under your belt, having more reps and just trusting yourself a lot more.”

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Bill Huber

BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packer Central, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.