Packers QB Jordan Love scouting report and development

After three years in Green Bay we have yet to learn what Jordan Love can be for the Packers. All we can do is work with what we have, small sample size, and some pre-draft evaluations.

On Valentine’s Day 2023, Jordan Love was on the brains of many fans as the most iconic player in franchise history mulls his future.  This franchise may be moving toward Love in the coming weeks, so let’s take a look at the young quarterback.

Tools

Jordan Love looks every bit the part of a franchise quarterback. At 6-4 and 225 pounds he is an imposing figure who has looked like an NFL player since his 2018 season at Utah State.

However, looks aren’t everything and the physical tools have to match the stature. Love has a cannon for an arm, one that was never doubted at all by NFL scouts.

He is an “athletic passer with a strong arm who displays bigtime NFL potential,” according to Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network. His arm wasn’t doubted by any NFL scouts and was always seen as a guy who had the arm strength to make any throw on the field.

Love ran a 4.74-second 40-yard dash at the 2020 NFL combine, which isn’t a special time. However, Love has always shown above average athleticism at the quarterback position, showing the ability to run when needed and escape the pocket to make plays off structure.

Jordan has all the physical tools you could ever ask for in a franchise quarterback, a huge reason why Green Bay selected him to sit behind Aaron Rodgers.

College Performance

Love spent three years as the starter at Utah State, with his sophomore season being the best of the bunch. According to Sports Reference, Love garnered second-team All-Mountain West honors and completed 64 percent of his passes for 3,567 yards and 32 touchdowns with six interceptions as a sophomore in 2018. He was named to the Honorable Mention All-Mountain West team and completed 61.9 percent of his passes for 3,402 yards and 20 touchdowns with 17 interceptions as a junior.

His sophomore season would have set him up as a no-doubt top-10 pick, showing the talent and production to be a star in the NFL. But his junior year was a little bit of a disappointment, allowing him to fall to Green Bay at pick 26.

After only throwing six interceptions in 2018, he struggled in 2019, throwing 17 interceptions. By this point we had seen the physical tools for Love, even if the production fell off in a major way he would be coveted by NFL teams.

His 2018 tape was legitimately insane, and some of the interception luck caught up to him the following season. Love has a gunslinger mentality and had plenty of turnover worthy plays in 2018, but didn’t necessarily translate into turnovers.

He has a special ability to get outside the pocket and make plays off-schedule. This obviously leads Love to think he can make any throw on the field, and could sometimes get him in trouble, especially in 2019.

Utah State went from coach Matt Wells in 2018, to Gary Anderson as their head coach in 2019. Wells went to Texas Tech and Love opted to stay at Utah State for his redshirt junior season.

Love also lost many of his weapons from the year prior, which seemed to impact him in a big way. In addition to his accuracy concerns, Love didn’t seem to have a ton of help around him besides his favorite target Siaosi Mariner.

This led the young quarterback to force the ball into coverage often and try to make plays, and “hero ball” became a bigger part of his game.

Packers Career

After being selected in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, Love has been mostly parked on the bench behind four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers. We have mostly been forced to listen to reports of Love’s progress from beat reporters as he showcases his skills at OTAs.

However, we have seen an important quality consistently in Love, his character. To this point in his professional career, Love has done nothing at all to create controversy or be an issue and has remained respectful and hard-working in his time as backup.

Love was put in an extremely tough situation that could have broken many players, but he has remained calm through it all. One of my favorite traits of Jordan Love is his poise, it just never seems like the game is too much for him.

We saw him in one start during the 2021 season, where he really struggled but kept Green Bay in the game against Kansas City, and really outplayed Patrick Mahomes.

The game plan in that game was not at all tailored to Jordan Love, and Matt LaFleur was critical of himself afterwards. It didn’t seem that the game plan was altered at all from Aaron Rodgers as the starter to Jordan Love.

This changed in a big way when Love entered the game against the Eagles this season. With Rodgers going down due to injury we truly saw all of Jordan Love’s ability on display, albeit for one quarter of football.

This was the first time Packer fans could really get excited about something Love put on tape, and he dominated in limited action. He looked poised and unphased by one of the best defenses in the NFL, including this strike to Christian Watson.

Love had plenty of throws and moments in that game that made people turn their heads, even some incompletions that were too impressive to ignore.

Conclusion

Whether you love or hate Jordan Love, the draft pick, or moving on from Aaron Rodgers, all the tools are there for him to become the next great quarterback of the Packers.

There are a few reasons for concern, namely accuracy, and decision-making. Hopefully, after two years of watching one of the greatest to ever do it, Love has learned and is able to improve even more.

When the Packers drafted Love it was clear they wanted him to play at some point, but what many don’t realize is how talented he truly is. His pre draft evaluation and ability shockingly compares to Aaron Rodgers.

They were both raw players who needed to improve some big parts of their game, including decision making accuracy and throwing motion. It is no surprise that the Packers loved the Utah State product, his pre draft evaluation compares to Aaron Rodgers in ways.

Whether or not Love becomes his predecessor is unknown and unlikely, but the talent and physical gifts are there. Both Rodgers and Favre had a gunslinger gene that not all quarterbacks have, but Jordan does and the Packers clearly like that.

It is time to see what he can do.