Green Bay Packers Should Keep Tim Boyle for the 2020 Season

With the addition of Jordan Love, the Green Bay Packers could move on from Tim Boyle, but there are a few reasons why holding on to him makes sense.

While the preseason can be a bit monotonous and as fans, our biggest concern is that nobody gets hurt, over the last few seasons the Tim Boyle Laser Show has kept us entertained each summer.

Undrafted out of Eastern Kentucky, it is Boyle who has outlasted both Brett Hundley and DeShone Kizer as the Green Bay Packers backup quarterback. Although he has only taken four regular-season snaps and his game can still look raw at times, he can make those NFL throws, and he had shown some real growth between the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

However, the selection of Jordan Love in the first round of this past draft, not only starts the clock on Aaron Rodgers’ time in Green Bay but Boyle’s as well.

Before even taking a snap or stepping on the practice field, Love is already the backup quarterback just given his draft status. In today’s NFL, where keeping two quarterbacks is more of the norm, it’s easy to assume that Boyle only has a few months left with the team.

And that very well could be the case. But I don’t know that it is a given as there is certainly value in keeping him around as the third quarterback this season.

If we rewind to not that long ago, keeping three quarterbacks on the roster was a common occurrence. In ideal situations, teams had their starter, their developmental quarterback, and a veteran to help the young quarterback along. That sounds very similar to the 2020 Green Bay Packers quarterback situation.

At 25-years-old, Boyle is far from a grizzled NFL veteran but he now has two years in the NFL and a year in Matt LaFleur’s offense under his belt. Now, this doesn’t mean that Boyle’s sole purpose is to work with Love, but having his experience and knowledge on the practice field and in the film room isn’t a bad thing for the rookie either.

As Boyle points out in a recent interview with Jimmy Christensen of Packer Report, there is already a very noticeable difference between Year 1 of LaFleur’s offense and Year 2:

"“Going into the season with the same offense is so critical. Being able to dive into the finer details is great. Last year was more of an install, let’s get the finer details and let’s get comfortable. Now that we’re in year two we can kind of fine-tune some things, talk about more adjustments, and like I said, dive into the thicker details.”"

From the day to day activities of being an NFL quarterback to some insights into what he sees during practice or in film sessions, even though Boyle is still trying to establish himself at the NFL level, he can certainly be a part of Love’s learning process. Not to mention that he is someone else for Love to compete with each day and that is never a bad thing.

While some may call the third quarterback a wasted roster spot, we saw the Packers carry three quarterbacks – Rodgers, Kizer, and Boyle – during the 2018 season. So it’s not like this is something highly unusual for them to do. Additionally, Boyle likely isn’t going to fetch a whole lot on the trade market with his lack of in-game experience and he simply has more value to this Packers team than a late Day 3 draft pick would.

We also don’t know what effect COVID-19 is going to have on NFL teams this season and with there the possibility that players are going to miss some time, having a third quarterback on the roster who knows the offense seems like the wise thing to do.

With a cap hit of only $752,000 and a dead cap hit of $2,000, moving on from Boyle doesn’t give Green Bay more cap space either. Instead, there once again seems to be more value in hanging on to Boyle than letting him walk.

Although we have some educated guesses, we don’t know exactly when Jordan Love is going to take over as the starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. But before that takes place, the Packers should be doing everything possible to help him develop his game. And one small but not insignificant move that they can make is keeping Tim Boyle on the roster this season.