Jordan Love looks ‘Rodgers-esque’ in statement win over Chiefs

Jordan Love masterfully leads Packers over Chiefs Jordan Love, Packers stun Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs

Carmen Vitali

NFC North Reporter

This is legitimately the first time I have said this: Jordan Love is entering into Aaron Rodgers-esque territory.

The past few weeks have seen Love get progressively more comfortable as his receivers gain more experience, Green Bay figure out its best offensive line combination and the defense find its pass rush. Love is clearly in command of the Green Bay offense.

Sunday night, he started having fun with it.

The Packers took down the Kansas City Chiefs at Lambeau by a score of 27-19 to improve to 6-6 on the season. Green Bay is now firmly in the NFC wild card mix.

Love executed the opening drive to perfection — literally. He completed all six of his passes as he marched the Packers down the field and punctuated the drive with a one-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ben Sims.

He then went on to complete 25 of his 36 pass attempts for 267 yards and three touchdowns. Against one of the NFL’s best defenses — and the defending champions — Love had a 118.6 quarterback rating — his sixth game in triple digits. Since Week 10, Love is averaging 286.5 passing yards per game, which ranks fifth among all quarterbacks in that span. Since then, he also has 10 passing touchdowns, trailing only Dak Prescott (13) and Brock Purdy (11), per FOX Sports research. Love is tied with Purdy for the most games with three passing touchdowns and no interceptions this season, as well, with four — one ahead of Prescott, as per the broadcast.

According to ESPN, all of Love’s three touchdown passes on Sunday came against the blitz. On the season, he now has eight touchdowns and no interceptions when teams bring five or more rushers. He’s the picture of poise, even in the face of pressure.

“I’ve got more reps, I’m more comfortable understanding where I need to go with the ball,” Love said after the game. “I think the O-line is doing a great job just being able to pick this stuff up. It’s not easy when they’re bringing the all-outs and these blitzes, things like that, but they’ve been doing a great job in giving me time. Then the receivers obviously have an awareness of when they need to be open and how long I got and just going out there and making plays.”

Jordan Love masterfully leads Packers over Chiefs

The flashes have been there since September, but we are seeing the consistency from Love that we didn’t see earlier. The flashes have also gotten flashier; Love throwing off his back foot and sometimes off no foot; Love chucking the ball up on calculated 50/50 balls to give his receivers a chance; Love dropping dimes in the end zone. It has all the excitement of a young Rodgers and more. It’s now legitimately fun to watch the Green Bay offense — first and second-year receivers and all.

The fact that after less than a full season, Love has not only grasped the offense but is making it his own while elevating the play of those around him, who are also learning and growing, is just about all you need to know that Love is Green Bay’s guy moving forward. Congratulations, Packers fans, you only needed to suffer through two months of irrelevance.

The Packers’ last two wins haven’t come easy, either. They played the best team in their division on the road on Thanksgiving in front of a national audience and Love had his coming out party. Now, against the team he got his first start against in 2021, Love came full circle and righted the wrongs of that game, where he completed just 19 of his 34 passing attempts for 190 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

“For me personally, I’ve had this game circled for a long time,” said Love after the game. “To get the victory is huge.”

Jordan Love, Packers stun Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs

The Packers aren’t a finished product yet. Neither is Love. But their trajectory looks good. So good, in fact, they could conceivably secure a wild card spot in the postseason, which is a feat not even Rodgers accomplished in his first year. In its current iteration, Green Bay probably isn’t a real threat in the postseason quite yet, but the fact that this is the foundation they are laying suggests the Packers could be a problem for quite a few years to come.

They’ll need to pay Love sooner than later, even though he’s under contract through 2024. Quarterback contracts aren’t getting any cheaper. That’s why it was so important to get a firm evaluation on Love this season. But it seems they already have at this point and can feel good about awarding him a long-term contract that keeps him under center in Green Bay for years to come. They can afford to do it too, because most of their skill players, who are the next most expensive of the bunch, are under team-controlled contracts through at least 2025. None of them are even being paid first-round money.

There’s a reason this is the way Green Bay has done things since the Lombardi years: it works. And it seems like it’s going to keep working for the foreseeable future, especially if the Packers have indeed found Rodgers’ successor.

Carmen Vitali covers the NFC North for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.