Packers: To take ‘half a season’ to tell about Love

GREEN BAY, Wis. — All offseason, the Green Bay Packers preached patience with new starting quarterback Jordan Love. That was the mantra with everyone from general manager Brian Gutekunst to coach Matt LaFleur and even some players.

Patience now has a timeline, at least for how long it might take to find out whether Love can extend the Packers’ 30-year run of MVP-level quarterback play from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and beyond or if they will have to search for another quarterback perhaps as early as next offseason.

“I’m comparing it a little bit to Aaron’s first year as a starter, yeah, I’d say at least half a season to know,” Packers President Mark Murphy said Monday. “And I think even though we ended up with a losing record that year, but we saw enough of Aaron to know that we had something special.”

While the Packers were 6-10 in Rodgers’ first season as a starter in 2008, halfway through the season the team had seen enough for him to warrant a contract extension. Rodgers threw for more than 4,000 yards and 28 touchdowns that season. Love already had his rookie contract extended; this offseason, he signed a deal that runs through the 2024 season. The deal essentially replaced the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.

Like Rodgers, Love spent his first three NFL seasons as a backup. Love has one NFL start to his credit, which is one more than Rodgers had when he took over for Favre. Love was the handpicked successor to Rodgers in 2020, when Gutekunst traded up to take Love at No. 26 overall in the NFL draft.

“He was highly criticized when he drafted Jordan Love,” Murphy said of Gutekunst earlier on Monday during his address to Packers shareholders. “That draft, though, now put us in a position where we feel we can be competitive in the long term.”

They might need help from other areas, too, while Love adjusts to life as a starter. The Packers used their first-round pick, No. 13 overall — which was acquired as part of the Rodgers trade to the New York Jets — on edge rusher Lukas Van Ness. It marked the 12th time in their past 13 first-round picks that the Packers have gone with defense. Yet the Packers once again underachieved in 2022 on that side of the ball, making this a critical season for third-year defensive coordinator Joe Barry.

They also opted not to re-sign several of Rodgers’ favorite targets: receivers Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard plus tight ends Marcedes Lewis and Robert Tonyan.

“I think that’s one of the reasons people are excited, because there’s, I don’t know if I’d call it uncertainty, but we’re a much different team than we were last year,” Murphy told reporters after the shareholders meeting. “We’ll be younger, but I’m optimistic. I obviously have a lot of confidence in Matt. I think our defense probably will have to carry us a little bit in the early season.”

LaFleur has scoffed at the notion that with Rodgers gone, it will allow him to run more of his system, which is rooted in the Kyle Shanahan scheme. Murphy, however, said that just might be the case.

“I think, offensively, you’re going to see probably a little bit more of Matt’s true offense,” Murphy said two days before the Packers’ first training camp practice. “Obviously, when you have a great quarterback like Aaron and somebody who’s been in the league as long as he has, we gave him the flexibility to change plays and get in and out of things that really helped, but I would anticipate a strong running game and play-action off of that.”