Love Won’t Practice Until Contract Extension Is Signed

Jordan Love is present for the start of Green Bay Packers training camp but will not practice until he has put pen to paper on a lucrative contract extension.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love works out with teammates at minicamp. / Mark Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is at training camp but will not practice until he has signed a contract extension, general manager Brian Gutekunst said about an hour before the first practice.

Could that get done soon?

“I think so,” Gutekunst said. “Again, you never know. We’re working really hard to get that done. I think it’s really important for us. At the same time, the thing that I have confidence in is we both want the same thing. We want Jordan here for a long time, give him that stability for him, and it gives us some stability for our group as well.

“Russ (Ball) is doing a great job with (agent) David Mulugheta and their team. You’ve got two people who are very experienced with this, so I’m optimistic. These are big deals. It takes time. They’re not as easy as some people may think.”

Love reported as scheduled for the start of camp rather than holding out. Gutekunst said Love’s agents told the team of his decision to not practice on Saturday.

“I think this is something we’re all working on,” Gutekunst said. “We certainly understand where he’s coming from. We’d like him to be out there. It’s important for him to be out there. Obviously, you guys know how important practice is, and working with his teammates. But as of now, until we get that resolved, he will not be practicing. He’s taking part in everything else.”

That means Love has been in the meetings and he will be on the practice field. He just won’t be throwing the ball; that will be left up to Sean Clifford and rookie Michael Pratt.

Huge contracts are never easy to negotiate. This one perhaps hit a big obstacle when Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence signed a five-year, $275 million contract last month that matched the Bengals’ Joe Burrow for the largest by annual value in NFL history.

The Packers could make an easy argument that Love wasn’t worthy of a contract as large as Burrow’s given the resumes. When Burrow signed his extension in September 2023, he was coming off a fourth-place finish in the NFL MVP race and had led the Bengals to a Super Bowl.

Lawrence changed the equation, though. Lawrence finished seventh in MVP voting in 2022 when he threw 25 touchdowns vs. eight interceptions and led the Jaguars to a stunning playoff victory. However, in 2023, Lawrence as a third-year starter backtracked. He threw 21 touchdowns vs. 14 interceptions, and his passer rating went from 95.2 to 88.5 as the Jaguars missed the playoffs.

If the Packers could make an easy argument about Burrow being better than Love, Love’s representatives could make an equally easy argument that Love is better than Lawrence.

It’s right there in the numbers. Even with Love leading the NFL in interceptions during the first half of the season, he finished the year plus-21 in touchdowns vs. interceptions compared to plus-7 for Lawrence. Moreover, Love’s passer rating of 96.1 is better than any of Lawrence’s three seasons.

Regardless, the contract will get done. The Packers might not like the final price tag but they will like the results if Love played like he did during the second half of last season.

During the final eight games of the regular season, Love led the Packers to a 6-2 record by ranking first in passing yards and touchdown-to-interception ratio, second in passing touchdowns and passer rating, and third in completion percentage.

Love produced a passer rating of at least 108 in seven of those games, setting the stage for his national introduction vs. the Cowboys in the playoffs. Love finished 16-of-21 passing for 272 yards and three touchdowns. His 157.2 passer rating was the highest ever for a visiting quarterback in a playoff game.

He fell apart a bit in the playoff loss to the 49ers, though, when he completed only 21-of-34 passes for 194 yards. He threw two touchdown passes but also two interceptions, including a bad decision and bad ball with the game on the line.

Still, it was impossible to be anything but bullish about Love. This isn’t 12 months ago, when the Packers didn’t have a firm handle one way or the other on whether Love would be great, bad or in between. The Packers – even with Love’s small sample size of excellent games – believe they’ve got their man to guide the franchise into the future.

The contract will cement that status.

“Certainly, we’re very down the road as far as we know he’s our franchise quarterback and we’re ready to move forward,” Gutekunst said. “It’s not like we’re trying to make that decision. But, at the same time, we want to put the best team around him we can, and we want to make sure that there’s certainly the structure of it so that we can do what we need to do for our football team moving forward, not only this year but in years to come is very, very important.

“Again, like I said, this is just part of it, not unexpected. We’ll work to get it done, and hopefully he won’t miss too much time.  We’ve got a lot of work to do. We think we have a very good football team, but we’ve got to come together as a team, and he’s a big part of that. So him being out there is important for us. We’ll get there.”

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