Love Not a Top-10 Quarterback?

In a fresh set of quarterback rankings produced by NFL Draft guru Matt Miller, the Packers’ Jordan Love was behind the likes of the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and, yes, the Jets’ Aaron Rodgers.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) is shown during the team’s minicamp Tuesday, June 11, 2024 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. / Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

 

With the doldrums of the offseason fully upon us, the dead period between the end of minicamp and the start of training camp leads to something that everyone loves to look through.

Lists and rankings!

Recently, Matt Miller’s Substack page known as The Draft Scout ranked each starting quarterback, including the Green Bay Packers’ Jordan Love.

Miller’s premise was to put each quarterback into tiers, but also have them ranked in order based on those tiers.

Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes was first on the list, which should come as no surprise. The back-to-back Super Bowl champion has been the best player in the sport since he stepped into the starting role in Kansas City.

He was listed in a tier of his own.

Beyond him was the tier Miller called elite, which included only Buffalo’s Josh Allen and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow.

The third tier was playoff quarterbacks.

A glaring omission from that list? Love.

Love was listed in a tier just below what Miller referred to as playoff quarterbacks. That list included the Chargers’ Justin Herbert, the Raven’s Lamar Jackson and former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

The fourth tier on Miller’s list was titled “young guns.”

Love was listed as the first quarterback in this tier and 11th overall, ahead of the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence, the 49ers’ Brock Purdy, the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa and the Cardinals’ Kyler Murray.

Of Love, Miller wrote:

If Love plays like he did down the stretch last year, he’ll be climbing this list in a hurry. His first season as a starter in Green Bay was magical, with Love outplaying Rodgers’ 2022 level.

Miller is right. Love had a tough start to the season while playing with an offense that was historically young and inexperienced.

The Packers, as a result, stumbled to a 3-6 start, leading to some questions as to whether Love could be a one-and-done if the Packers’ season continued to go south.

Down the stretch, however, Love was brilliant. The Packers won seven of their last 10 games, including a blowout victory at the Dallas Cowboys before coming within minutes of beating the eventual NFC Champion San Francisco 49ers.

Love threw 23 touchdowns to just three interceptions during Green Bay’s hot streak to end the season.

Love soon will be rewarded with a contract extension that could make him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL.

“We're in those conversations right now,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said in a recent radio appearance on Milwaukee radio station 97.3 The Game. “I think the nice part about this is none of these things are always easy or fast, but both parties want the same thing. We'd like to get this done before training camp, for sure.”

The language Gutekunst used was one of a general manager who was confident he’s found his quarterback of the future. It’s also a stark difference from the commitment, or lack thereof, he showed Love publicly as the Packers were trending toward the top of the draft last November.

“We’ve got 10 games left,” Gutekunst said. “These are going to be very important 10 games. I think he’s done a lot of really good things. Really like the way he’s responded to the adversity, how he’s led the team. Again, we’ve got to be better as a unit and I expect that to happen over the next 10 games.”

Had Miller paused the season and done his quarterback rankings at the time of Gutekunst’s comments, Love likely would have been at the bottom of the rankings. He was near the top of the league in turnovers, and the Packers were struggling to find any semblance of success on offense.

Instead, Love rebounded, and the Packers feel as if they have their man.

In addition, there’s legitimate conversation as to how high Love can climb on this list when it is completed in 2025.

Of the 10 quarterbacks above him, Love has some argument to be ranked above players including the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, the Rams’ Matthew Stafford and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts. Each player has a longer track record of success (Prescott, Stafford) or has played in a Super Bowl (Hurts), which likely earned them the nod.

While it’d be tough to argue that Love should be ranked ahead of Rodgers, Jackson and Herbert, if Love puts together a full season the way he finished his 2023 campaign, he’ll be on the short list for the NFL’s MVP award. 

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“I said it before, I’ll say it again: He’s the best leader on our team. He’s the engine. He drives it. It’s what he does.”https://t.co/3OwHPQqItM

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) June 18, 2024

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