The Jordan Love Era Has Arrived

After three years honing his craft, it is Jordan Love's time to replace Aaron Rodgers and lead a “billion-dollar corporation.” Is he ready?

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Jordan Love is the Green Bay Packers’ new starting quarterback.

What a deep and powerful sentence that must be for Love to be considering with the inevitability of Aaron Rodgers being traded to the New York Jets.

In 2008, Rodgers grappled with all the emotions Love is feeling now.

“You don’t know you’re ready until you’re in that position,” Rodgers said after the season-ending loss to Detroit. “I remember the day I was sleeping in San Diego and woke up to 50 text messages that Brett (Favre) had retired. Then the emotions hit you. ‘Oh, man, now I’m the guy.’”

With Rodgers making public his desire to be traded to the Jets on Wednesday on The Pat McAfee Show, Love is the guy. The undisputed guy. Drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, he has toiled for three seasons behind Rodgers, just like Rodgers worked for three years behind Favre.

The totality of the work is why the Packers are on the verge of doing what might have seemed unthinkable 12 months ago and trading the legendary Rodgers after he played one year of a three-year, $150 million contract. The Packers gave him that monster contract because he was considered the best option to win games. He’d still be the Packers’ quarterback if the team didn’t think Love was at least capable of keeping the team competitive.

“He definitely needs to play,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine. “I think that’s the next step in his progression. I think he’s ready for that. Not every quarterback comes into this league ready to go out there and play. I think he needed a little time but, over the last year-and-a-half or so, we’ve seen that’s the next step in his progression. He needs to go out and play.”

As Packers President Mark Murphy said last week: “We have a lot of confidence in him. We drafted him and developed him. A lot of credit goes to our coaches and to Jordan. We do think he’s ready.”

Even Rodgers said Love is ready.

“He’s going to be a great player,” Rodgers told McAfee.

So, ready or not, the Jordan Love Era is here.

Embracing the Challenge

After working in relative darkness for three seasons to be prepared for this moment, how will he handle the blinding spotlight of replacing one of the greatest players in NFL history?

“I think he’ll embrace it,” David Yost, who was Utah State’s offensive coordinator in 2017, when Love eventually moved into the starting lineup, and 2018, when Love became a star with 32 touchdowns vs. six interceptions, told Packer Central recently.

“I don’t think he’ll put any extra pressure on himself. I think he’ll go out and be the best he can be and understand that he has all the ability and talent to be a really good NFL quarterback. Then, it’s just the more you play and learn, the better you get. I think he’ll progress in that way. He’s not going to step on the field and try to be Aaron Rodgers. Knowing him, he’s going to be the best version of Jordan Love he can be.”

As was the case with Rodgers in 2007, Love’s Year 3 growth was a key driver in the team’s decision. It was an incredibly small sample size, but Love was 6-of-9 passing for 113 yards and one touchdown during the fourth quarter of the November loss at the Philadelphia Eagles, a game in which Rodgers was knocked out with injured ribs. While the Eagles were playing soft coverage to protect a big lead, Love looked sharp and decisive.

“I feel like an older brother watching him do well,” Rodgers said a couple days later on The Pat McAfee Show. “I care about the kid a lot. Fun to see his growth, fun to just see him relax out there. I think as any young player, once you can make a few plays, it kind of takes the anxiety out of the body and the tension out of the body. To see him make accurate throws and do what he’s been doing has been fun to watch.”

Practice Making Perfect

It wasn’t just those 10 snaps, though. Working alongside veteran quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, Love took a huge jump mentally in terms of the playbook and physically in terms of accuracy over the past season.

The practice field isn’t the playing field but taking all those scout-team reps against the No. 1 defense matters. Those are competitive periods, with Love facing some of the best defensive backs in the NFL. From that standpoint, those practice reps hold a lot more value than anything that happened during three preseason starts.

In fact, considering Love was running the backups against Green Bay’s No. 1 defense on the practice field, an argument could be made that those 17 weeks of practices are more valuable than the end of a game that he entered with a 14-point deficit.

Referencing his own Year 3 experience, Rodgers said, “The jumps that you see coincide with him working on things in look-team reps in practice a lot, working on look-offs and different types of arm-angle throws.

“You didn’t see that in the game, you just saw kind of playing on time and making accurate throws, but I think it’s because he’s been feeling confident and doing those things on the look team. When you get in the game, it allows you to just kind of sync and go back to the fundamental things that you’ve been drilling on. Big respect to him.”

‘He Looked Like the Guy at Utah State’

Yost, who was instrumental in Love’s rise from fifth-string redshirt to first-round pick, watched Love’s ill-fated start at the Chiefs in 2021 and Love’s impressive relief performance in 2022.

“He looked like the guy that I worked with at Utah State,” Yost said. “He looked very comfortable. It looked quite a bit different than the Chiefs game a year earlier, where he looked tight and it looked like they were trying to protect him and not ask him to do too much.

“But, at some point, the quarterback’s got to make a play. No matter what offense you run or how you do it, at some point, the quarterback’s got to make a play. He just looked much more at ease in that Philly game than he had before, which is a credit to him for preparing himself for it.”

Back at Utah State in 2017, Love opened the season as the No. 2 behind senior Kent Myers. He played here and there in every game, with one of his first big chances coming in a showdown against Josh Allen-led Wyoming in the sixth game of the season. Love’s first drive resulted in a touchdown. While his night ended with three interceptions, Love became the starter the following week and immediately earned Conference Player of the Week honors.

“Players know players before coaches do,” Yost said. “The coaches [on the sideline], they told me, ‘It’s different. When Jordan goes in for his drive, there’s a different energy from the group.’ It’s, ‘Here’s Jordan, here we go.’ He had that and they felt it and they fed off it.

“As soon as we made him the starter, our kids fed off of it. I think he’s got actual leadership and he also understands the role of that position and you can’t hide from it.”

Success or Failure at Quarterback

Yost has coached a bunch of top quarterbacks, including Justin Herbert, Blaine Gabbert and Chase Daniel. That list of quarterbacks shows the entire range of quarterbacking. Herbert is the young star. Gabbert was the first-round bust. Daniel was the undrafted free agent in 2009 who remains in the league.

Why do some quarterbacks make it and some don’t? What’s that secret sauce?

That was part of the conversation, Yost said, when he talked to Packers coaches and scouts about Love before the 2020 draft.

“I told them I thought he was going to be a really, really good NFL quarterback,” Yost said. “Sometimes, it’s the opportunity and the right place at the right time. But also, there’s an innate ability to play the position.

“Everybody in the NFL’s talented. There’s no untalented guys. There’s guys that have way more talent than some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Just being able to throw a football is not playing quarterback. There’s a feel to it. It’s a confidence, it’s a belief. Can you make decisions after the snap that everyone can trust?”

What could work in Love’s favor is how he grew into a star. Literally.

“It’s funny because he’s become this physical specimen with what he can do with the football,” Yost said. “He’s not going to be the guy with the biggest arm but he doesn’t lack any athleticism or arm strength. But he wasn’t always that way.

“He was kind of a skinny guy in high school. When he first got to Utah State, there’s pictures of him and he was 186 pounds, but he got stronger and stronger. He had to be a good quarterback before he had all the physical skills with his footwork and arm strength. He worked really hard at all the fundamentals to put himself in position.”

The ‘It’ Factor

That’s what Gutekunst has seen the past three years.

“You hear all the guys in my business talking about the ‘it’ factor and the ‘it’ factor can be a number of things,” he said.

“Their dedication and work ethic, I think, is huge. There are obviously certain physical traits and intelligence and all kinds of different things these guys have to have to compete in this league at a high level, but their willingness to sacrifice and work, day in and day out – for all players, not just quarterbacks, but for all players – I think is usually the determining factor if they have all those other things.”

Gutekunst “absolutely” has seen that from Love.

With the book officially closed on Rodgers’ brilliant career, it’s time for Love to show he’s not just a starting quarterback but a winning quarterback. It probably won’t be easy.

Embracing the Pressure

When Rodgers replaced Favre in his fourth season, the Packers went 6-10. Down the stretch, Green Bay went 1-7. Six of those losses were by four points or less. It’s one thing having the skill to play quarterback. It’s quite another to turn potential into winning football.

And that’s just in a quarterbacking vacuum. Love has to show he can win under what’s sure to be intense scrutiny. There will be pressure from fans. There will be pressure from the team. There will be pressure from within to show he is the long-term answer and worthy of a lucrative contract. Love isn’t simply replacing some random quarterback. He’s replacing one of the greatest in the history of the game.

There are a couple generations of Packers fans who know nothing but quarterbacking greatness. That is the expectation.

“The coaches there, they know what they’re doing. They’re going to put him in a position to be successful with his skill-set,” Yost said. “When he got in there this year, you could see that what they were asking him to do is what he can excel at. They’ll put him in a position to be successful.

“There will be pressure but being a starting quarterback in the NFL is pressure. You’re leading a billion-dollar corporation. You have 80,000 people watching you all the time and millions and millions that have an opinion about you. I think he can compartmentalize and understand what he can do about it and do it in a good way.

“But that’s quite a big weight that gets thrown on you, but that’s part of the reason why you want to play quarterback. You want to have that opportunity to go attack that and be the best you can be.”

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