Love Scores First Victory

Jordan Love showed his potential with some clutch throws during his first live two-minute drill.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – In Jordan Love’s first two-minute drill, he looked like a rookie quarterback.

Also in Love’s first two-minute drill, he showed why he was a first-round draft pick. Starting at the 25-yard line with 1:03 on the clock and needing a field goal to “win,” Love committed the cardinal sin of taking a sack on the first play. Then, after a completion to receiver Reggie Begelton, he let a few seconds melt away before he called the team’s one and only timeout.

After that inauspicious start, Love got rolling. He hit tight end Jace Sternberger in stride for a first down. Then, on third-and-10, Love stepped up in the pocket and delivered a strike over the middle to receiver Darrius Shepherd at the defense’s 45. Love hurried the offense to the line and clocked the ball with 10 seconds left. Needing one more big play, he delivered at the sideline to Shepherd at the 30. Mason Crosby booted a 48-yard field goal for the win.

“That was my first kind of live go at it,” Love said after practice. “I definitely felt comfortable in there. … We had to get into field-goal range, so that’s what we did. We had the sack, called the timeout and then we had some situations where we had to get out of bounds, clock it, and we were able to get into field-goal range at the end to where Mason could come on and kick the field goal.”

It was a big moment in Love’s abbreviated development. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Love missed critical developmental time in May and June. That’s true for all rookies, of course, but it’s especially true for a quarterback, who not only has to know his job but everyone’s job.

With practices replaced by Zoom calls, Love took what he learned during the virtual offseason to the practice field with his quarterbacks coach, John Beck. Beck played for Packers coach Matt LaFleur when LaFleur was quarterbacks coach in Washington. He knows what the Packers are looking for from a footwork and fundamentals perspective.

Fortunately for Love, he’s not being asked to play right away with Aaron Rodgers entrenched as the starter. True to his word, Rodgers has helped the rookie. Every day on the practice field, Rodgers can be seen passing along a tip here and a pointer there. For his part, Love said he sits behind Rodgers in the meeting room to absorb as much information as possible.

“It was great for me being able to sit there, be in the same room as him, and just hear how he thinks about plays, and go out to practice and watch him put it together,” Love said. “It’s really awesome for me to see and take in and evaluate him and evaluate myself and just try and do my best job to learn by watching him. It’s been really good. He’s a great person and been able to help me in the quarterback room on certain things.”

Love knows he is in catch-up mode. He lost countless live reps due to the pandemic. While Beck was there to help with the fundamentals, LaFleur and quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy couldn't begin the hands-on teaching until August. All Love can do is grind away mentally and physically.

The two-minute drill was a nice reward for his work.

"Studying the playbook, trying to prepare myself to the best of my ability because once you understand and the more you understand the playbook and the plays and what’s happening on the field, the more the game slows down," Love said. "Obviously, at first, everything’s flying super-fast. Things still are flying fast. The more prepared I am every day, they start to slow down a little bit."