First, I should probably establish that Jordan Love actually is good. After all, you may not think he’s good, because he doesn’t seem as good as he is, which is the point of the article. So, let’s prove
that out. For all quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts so far this season, Love is:
- Third in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A)
- Seventh in completion percentage
- Fourth in QB Rating
- Sixth in Completion Percentage Above Expected (CPOE)
- Second in DAKOTA (I think it’s just called DAKOTA, but is a mix of CPOE and EPA)
- Second in Expected Points Added per Play (EPA/P)
- Eleventh in DVOA
Love may not be the best quarterback in football, but on a per play basis, he’s very much up there, and that’s been true since at least 2023. But, while I think Packer fans and national pundits alike are generally fine with Love, any discussion of him almost always comes with a caveat that “of course he’s not Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre,” or that “he’s good, not great.” But…
He’s pretty close! Really!
So, what gives? Why don’t we think Jordan Love could be one of the NFL’s best? Maybe even a Hall of Famer? I think it comes down to one main factor. Counting stats.
In Aaron Rodgers’ first three seasons as a starter, he averaged 4131 yards per season, while Love, in his first two full seasons, averaged 3774 yards. There are some injuries in there, so let’s give Love a boost by considering his 17-game average while a starter, which is 4010 yards. That doesn’t seem so bad except during Aaron’s first three seasons, teams only played 16 games. Aaron’s 17-game average at that time was 4483 yards per season. That’s a hefty difference. Even under Matt LaFleur in his final three seasons, Rodgers averaged over 4200 yards per 17 games. Importantly, it’s not really Love’s per play production that’s down versus Rodgers. It’s his attempts! Rodgers averaged 555 attempts per 17 games in his final three Packer seasons. Love has averaged 533.
The Packers moved slowly under Rodgers in terms of pace of play, but they are glacial under Love, and while Rodgers was happy to check out of a run to a pass, Love is happy, for better or worse, to stick with run calls, leading to more running plays and shorter overall games.
Last year due to injuries and pace of play, Jordan Love finished 19th in raw passing yards with 3389, two spots below Caleb Williams. While Love did finish seventh in yards in 2023 as a rookie with 4159, he finished behind Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes (who each played one fewer game than him), while being barely ahead of CJ Stroud and Matthew Stafford (who played two fewer games) and Trevor Lawrence (who also played one fewer game). Division rival Jared Goff passed for 416 more yards than Love that year. That’s a big counting stat difference!
The Packers’ focus on ball control and limited possessions is a both a feature and a bug. The power-based offense helps to create many of their big splash plays through deception, but the run-heavy nature also puts an upper limit on what a quarterback can do, and 4000-yard seasons just don’t pop like 4500-5000 yard seasons do for a lot of people.
Love also has a reputation for throwing more interceptions than a great quarterback should, but that’s just not true. In his career as a starter Love throws a pick on 2.1% of his attempts, which is on the slightly high end, ranking 16th highest of 35 qualifiers, but he’s been more careful with the ball than Josh Allen (2.3), and almost identical to Baker Mayfield and Jalen Hurts. Some might argue that many of Love’s picks seem baffling or stupid, and are therefore “worse” interceptions, but that’s true of the vast majority of interceptions thrown by all quarterbacks. Love is a little high on his picks to be sure, but Brett Favre threw picks on 3.3% of his dropbacks. The NFL is a different animal now, to be sure, but Love is closer to average than bad on this front.
Finally, the Shanahan-style offense, of which Matt LaFleur’s offense is a close cousin, has a reputation of making any quarterback look good. In fact, based on the relative success of Brock Purdy and Mac Jones recently, it almost seems to work better the less well regarded you are. There is definitely some system stink on Love, and maybe there’s even some validity to it, but when I watch Love play, I see a quarterback who is held back by passing in structure more than anything else. This is doubly true so far this year, where Love has remained hyper-efficient despite a sub-par rushing attack.
Love is a tricky evaluation, but I think he’s become underrated in some circles simply because the Packers don’t pass as much as most other teams. Maybe that should matter, and if there is a quarterback out there as efficient as Love, but with higher volume, that guy should get more credit. However, year in and year out, almost no one is more efficient on a per play basis than Jordan Love.
