Love Led Nation in INTs; Here’s Why to Not Worry

Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy weighs in on the stat that defines Packers first-round pick Jordan Love.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers traded up to select Jordan Love in the first round of last year’s draft. From the raw numbers, he could hardly be more different than the man he might eventually replace, Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers has the best touchdown-to-interception ratio and lowest interception percentage in NFL history. Rodgers’ ability to make big plays while avoiding big plays for the opponent is a defining characteristic. Love, on the other hand, threw 20 touchdowns vs. 17 interceptions last season, the latter number being the most in the nation.

Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy is tired of hearing about those numbers and annoyed that other numbers are ignored.

“He’s not a bad decision-maker,” Nagy said. “That was one of my biggest pet peeves in the draft process was people calling that kid a bad decision-maker. He’s not. He’s a kid that’s played with nobody around him and he was competitive and he was trying to win football games. Did he force throws? Absolutely. Did he have to force throws? Absolutely. You didn’t see bad decision-making on ’18 tape, when he threw 32 touchdowns and six picks. You never heard those numbers brought up the whole process. All you heard was 20 touchdowns, 17 picks. Like, nobody ever went back and talked about ’18.”

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It was Love’s 2018 tape, and his massive potential, that got him into the Senior Bowl and into the first round of last week’s draft. As a full-time starter for the first time, Love had arguably the best season in Utah State history and finished 10th in the nation in passer rating. He threw for 319 yards at Michigan State and 363 yards at Boise State in his two toughest matchups of the season.

Last season, however, was a struggle. Until two strong games to end the season, Love had 14 touchdowns vs. 15 interceptions. The numbers don’t tell the story, though. The coaching staff, including coach Matt Wells and offensive coordinator David Yost, moved to Texas Tech. Five of the team’s six leading pass catchers from 2018 weren’t with the team in 2019.

The traits that made Love a star in 2018 didn’t simply vanish in 2019. They were just harder to display.

“He’s the only quarterback I’ve ever scouted that’s going to be throwing into bigger windows in the NFL than he threw into in college.”

“He’s got more natural talent than any quarterback in this draft, including Tua (Tagovailoa), including Joe Burrow,” Nagy said. “He makes it look effortless. In any walk of life, the great ones make it look easy. He makes things look easy on the football field. There were so many factors on why this year went the way it did. Skeptics will say, ‘Oh, those are excuses.’ They’re not excuses; they’re reasons. His offensive line was as bad as any offensive line I’ve seen in a while. He had no offensive skill guys. I put out a tweet two months ago that he’s the only quarterback I’ve ever scouted that’s going to be throwing into bigger windows in the NFL than he threw into in college. The only one that’s even close is Matt Ryan at Boston College his last year there. What this guy could be if he sat a year, even two years, you could hit on a really, really high-end player – a Pro Bowl-level player. This isn’t just some guy. I thought it was a great move.”

Referencing Ryan was brilliant. Coming out of Boston College in 2008, the knock on Ryan was his turnover count. As a senior, he threw 31 touchdowns vs. 19 interceptions. In 12 NFL seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, Ryan has averaged 26.8 touchdowns vs. 12.3 interceptions.

“I’ll put it this way: Alex Smith has been criticized his whole career for passing checkdowns,” Nagy said. “Jordan Love has the courage to throw the ball down the field and try to fit it into tight windows, and you have to have that. You have to have that in you where you know things don’t look open all the time. Jordan’s got the guts to try to fit it in. That’s really hard to coach into a guy. It’s easier to rein a guy back.”