Jordan Love’s Homework: Fixing NFL’s Lowest Completion Percentage

Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur “challenged” his players to find something to work on. For Jordan Love, it was “finding completions.”

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Last Sunday, the Green Bay Packers’ offense delivered three dismal quarters before rallying past the New Orleans Saints. Four days later, the offense was so bad in the first half against the Detroit Lions that the second half was irrelevant.

With an extended break between the mini-bye and the upcoming Monday night game at the Las Vegas Raiders, coach Matt LaFleur gave his players some homework.

“I think Matt challenged us after last game and going through the break to just continue to watch the past couple games,” quarterback Jordan Love said, “and challenged everybody to think of one thing that we’re going to work on going forward and just kind of [put] our focus into that going forward.”

For Love, given is league-worst completion percentage, the focus is obvious.

“Going out there and getting positive plays and finding completions on every play,” he said.

Of 34 qualifying quarterbacks, Love’s completion rate of 56.1 percent is well below the league average of 65.7 percent. He is tied for 14th in passing attempts but is third in incompletions.

Love was a season-best 63.8 percent against Detroit – still worse than the NFL average – but was 1-of-6 for 9 yards and one interception when he stepped on the field facing a 24-3 deficit in the second quarter.

While coach Matt LaFleur thought Love did an “outstanding job” handling all the pressure applied by Detroit’s front, he also thought Love was guilty of bypassing too many opportunities.

“Were there times when he was maybe too picky and just take the profit? Yeah,” LaFleur said. “That’s part of the learning curve, just understanding that, especially when you’re going up against a pretty good opponent with a really good pass rush, is ‘Hey, if there’s a window there to throw the ball, I’ve got to get the ball out of my hand.’

Packers QB Jordan Love has thrown the third-most incomplete passes :: Photo by Wm. Glasheen/USA Today Sports Images

“The foundation of effective quarterback play all starts with reading with your feet, and if it’s open, you can’t be picky. You can’t pass up a completion for another completion. And I’m not saying that happened all the time, but if we’re being honest about it, there were a couple instances where he probably needs to get rid of the ball.”

After Thursday’s practice, LaFleur mentioned Love’s completion percentage has been impacted by the abundance of downfield passes. That has had an undeniable impact on the completion percentage.

Love’s average pass travels 10.31 yards downfield, by far the longest in the NFL. The top three in the NFL in completion percentage are the Bills’ Josh Allen, the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and the 49ers’ Brock Purdy. Their air yards per attempt, respectively, are 7.56, 6.87 and 7.42. So, in a sense, comparing completion percentages can be an apples-and-oranges proposition.

“We’ve thrown the ball further downfield than we ever have here. We’ve taken less of those quick run alerts, which definitely impact your completion percentage,” LaFleur said, referencing all those one-step passes that Aaron Rodgers zinged out to his receivers in past seasons.

Contrary to public opinion, drops have not been a factor. According to Pro Football Focus, Love has had five passes dropped; his 6.3 percent drop rate just slightly higher than the league average. SportRadar, which typically is kinder to receivers, has Love victimized by a drop rate of 3.1 percent; the league average is 4.4 percent. 

Sports Info Solutions has Love with an “on-target” rate of 72.6 percent that ranks 22nd out of 31 quarterbacks who’ve thrown at least 80 passes.

Whether it’s better decision-making and better accuracy by Love, better play-calling by LaFleur or better pass protection by the line, Love needs to complete more passes ASAP. And by ASAP, we mean at the start of games. In the first half of his four games, he’s completed a dreadful 47.4 percent of his passes and averaged 4.8 yards per attempt. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow is second-to-last in completion percentage (54.8) and worst in yards per attempt (4.0).

“I think we’ve just got to get into a rhythm faster,” Love said. “Just finding completions early, get the ball moving and just getting ourselves out of maybe the third-and-long situations we put ourselves in, cleaning up penalties, just all the pre-snap things that are hurting ourselves. So, I think once we get that, get that rhythm going again, we’ll be good.”

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