Scout: Love Will Keep Packers ‘Competitive for 20 Years’

Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said raved about the Packers' first-round pick, Utah State's Jordan Love.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Brian Gutekunst’s decision to use the Green Bay Packers’ first-round pick on quarterback Jordan Love has been widely criticized.

But not by everybody, and especially not by those involved in the game.

“You’re not going to get a quarterback that talented unless you bottom out, and what franchise wants to do that?” Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said. “This is a proactive move by Gutey. It puts that team in a position where they’re going to be competitive for maybe the next 20 years if this thing comes together.”

Nagy first met Love at the Manning Passing Academy last summer in Louisiana, when Love was coming off a breakout season of 32 touchdowns vs. six interceptions as a sophomore at Utah State. It was there that he learned Love would graduate early and be eligible to play in the Senior Bowl.

Nagy’s scouts watched Love twice in 2019, including a 42-6 loss at LSU on Oct. 5, when Love was 15-of-30 passing for 130 yards and three interceptions. Nonetheless, he impressed evaluators – including Gutekunst, who was there mostly to see LSU’s star-studded roster. The week at the Senior Bowl was Nagy’s first extended exposure.

“I hadn’t seen him throw live in a competitive situation before,” Nagy said. “For me, it was great seeing all the different kinds of throws he can make. He’s got every single pitch. He can throw with velocity, he can throw with touch, he can throw with a great trajectory down the field. It was cool to see not just throwing on air in shorts in a camp in the summertime in Louisiana.”

Playing quarterback is about more than throwing the football. It’s a big adjustment for most college quarterbacks, many of whom direct no-huddle offenses with plays called from the sideline via enormous cards. It’s a totally different process in the NFL, with that transition beginning at the Senior Bowl. Love impressed Nagy from that standpoint.

“We put these quarterbacks in a lot of situations they’re never in in college,” Nagy said. “They’re getting play calls directly from a coach, they’re having to go into a huddle, which none of them have to do anymore, and use verbiage, which none of them have to do. And then they have to go under center, which most of them never have to do. And he handled all that stuff really well. Usually, for most of the guys, the first day is really rough and gets a little better over the week. I think he’s going to be a quick study. This isn’t a long-term, developmental project. You give him a year out of that Utah State situation and let him shake all that stuff out of his system and get him honed back in and he’ll be ready to go.”

The “stuff” at Utah State that Nagy alluded to included a coaching change and major personnel losses turning into a season in which Love threw 20 touchdowns vs. 17 interceptions. That’s a stat mentioned often by Love’s critics, and one that drives Nagy crazy. (So crazy it will be a separate story.) Nagy and two other scouts reached by Packer Central this week shrugged off what happened last season and see the enormous amount of talent.

One of those scouts works for a team picking after Green Bay's spot at No. 30. He did not know if his general manager would have traded up for Love but it was discussed.

Nagy has been around the game for two decades, including as a scout with the Packers for their Super Bowl XXXI championship. He’s seen plenty of highly touted quarterbacks be drafted in the first round and fall on their face. Over the previous 20 drafts, 19 quarterbacks were selected between the 20th pick and 40th pick. For every Rodgers, Drew Brees and Lamar Jackson, there’s at least a couple versions of abject failures such as Paxton Lynch, Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow.

In that light, what does Love – the 26th pick on Thursday – have to do to not be a bust?

“That’s a good question,” Nagy said after a moment of consideration. “I don’t see a guy with his kind of tools and ability not succeeding. I just don’t. There’s a lot of first-round picks over the years that, as a scout, I’m giving fourth- and fifth- and sixth-round grades to and, on draft day, I’m sitting there shocked that guys would get picked that high because I didn’t see it myself. I could rip off 15 names right now like that.

“This kid’s extremely talented. Where you go matters. Patrick Mahomes went to an ideal situation, and people can’t lose sight of that. He got mentored by maybe the best mentor he could have been mentored by in Alex Smith. He went to the best quarterback-developer in the league in the head coaching spot with Andy (Reid), and he’s got ridiculous weapons around him and he got to sit for almost an entire year. That’s a pretty ideal situation. Hopefully, Jordan is similar. He’ll get the time to sit, which is great. I don’t know much about Matt (LaFleur) but hopefully they get pieces around him, but there’s no reason from a talent perspective why this guy shouldn’t succeed. I’ve been around the kid. He’s easy to like, he’s smart. From a makeup perspective, I don’t know why he wouldn’t succeed.”