Quarter Season Quarterback Check-Up: Jordan Love Weeks 1-4

  • October 9, 2023
  • 6 minutes read
We are about a quarter of the way through Jordan Love’s first season as starting QB for the Green Bay Packers. The 2020 first round draft pick had plenty of question marks surrounding his play coming into this season. 

In his short time captaining the offense, Love has already faced adversity. The team has already faced a slew of injuries to star players. Players such as WR Christain Watson, RB Aaron Jones, CB Jaire Alexander, and offensive lineman David Bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins have all each missed two games this season already. 

Despite these shortcomings Jordan Love has still impressed Packer fans everywhere with his play through four games. Without further ado, let’s take a deep dive into Love’s performance in the first quarter of the season.

 

Box Score

On paper, Jordan Love has been a good quarterback for the Packers so far this season. Through four weeks, Love has completed 74 passes on 132 attempts (56%) for 901 yards, eight touchdowns to only three interceptions. Love’s currently holds an 88 passer rating and a 49.0 QBR

Love is 15th in the league in yards, tied for 5th in touchdown passes, tied for 4th in interceptions, 19th in passer rating, and 21st in QBR. These numbers are good, but not jaw-dropping like we have come to expect from watching Rodgers. That being said, with the slew of injuries the offense has faced, forcing them to rely more on rookies and unproven guys, these numbers are solid.

The box score only tells us so much about how well a player is performing. More factors go into determining the quality of performance from a passer. By breaking apart Love’s stats by depth from the line of scrimmage, passing directions, passing concepts, and performance vs pressure, we can learn more about the new face of the team. 

 

Accuracy

The biggest knock on Jordan Love’s performance so far is his accuracy. Love is currently only completing 56% of his passes and has had several poor misses so far. His accuracy only gets worse when you break down his passing by depth from the line of scrimmage.

According to stats provided by PFF, Love has attempted 19 passes 20+ yards downfield. He has only completed five of them for 176 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. PFF gives Love a 57.4 grade on these deep passes, 28th in the league among QBs with at least three games played.

At shorter depths, Love’s accuracy improves, but is nevertheless still worrisome. On 36 medium throws, throws 10-19 yards from the LOS, Love has completed 18 of them for 301 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions. On 54 short throws, 0-9 yards from the LOS, Love has completed 37 of them for 329 yards and four touchdowns. 

Love’s accuracy of 50% and 68.5% respectively on these throws leaves a lot to be desired. The only throw type where Love has completed more than 70% of his passes is on throws behind the LOS. On 17 attempts, Love has completed 14 of them for 95 yards and a touchdown.  Luckily, Love can improve in this area as his career goes on. 

 

Under Pressure

Love’s performance drops significantly when pressured. His performance against the Detroit Lions in week four is the best example of this. Under duress in this game, Love graded at a 42.4, completing six passes on 14 attempts for 48 yards, zero touchdowns, and one interception.

This trend continues in the other games of the season as well. Love has attempted 30 passes on 43 dropbacks facing pressure so far this season. He has completed only 10 of those passes for 126 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Love’s 41.0 grade against pressure ranks 30th in the NFL.

 

Slow Ride

Love, like the rest of the Packers offense under Matt LaFleur, struggles to open games.

In the first quarter this season, Love has completed nine passes on 24 attempts for 99 yards, and a touchdown for a 64.6 passer rating. Love and the offense starts games slow, but that has been a theme for the Matt LaFleur led Packers for a while now.

Love makes up for his poor first quarter performance with a stellar third quarter. Coming out of the half, Love has attempted 37 passes. He has completed 30 of them for 377 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions. This statline gives Love a 133.9 passer rating in the third quarter, an excellent rating.

 

The Good

Love struggles on deep pass attempts, but his performance on shorter throws is noticeably better.

PFF gives Love a 74.3 grade on medium throws and 66.6 grade on short throws. These grades rank Love as the 16th and 18th ranked passer in the league respectively. For his first four games, this is a solid position to be in.

Earlier, we saw Love struggled against pressure. On the flip side, Love’s performance when kept clean improves significantly. On 106 dropbacks facing no pressure, Love has attempted 102 passes, completing 64 of them for 775 yards, seven touchdowns, and one interception. 

This gives him a passer rating of 104.82 and PFF grades him a 77.2 when kept clean, 17th in the league. Once again, this is where I would’ve wanted Love to be to start the year.

The final thing of note is Love’s resilience to adversity. In the two most recent matchups, the Packers started slow and dug themselves into a deep hole to start the game. Against the Saints, they fell behind 17-0 heading into the fourth quarter. A week later against the Lions, the Packers fell behind 27-3 at the half.

In the Saints game, Love was without Aaron Jones, Christian Watson, David Bahktiari, Elgton Jenkins, De’Vondre Campbell, and Jaire Alexander. Despite being down so many key players, Love battled. Taking one score in himself, then four minutes later finding Romeo Doubs for the go-ahead score, Love rallied the troops to 18 unanswered points. The defense held the following drive, completing Love’s comeback, matching the largest in team history.

In the Lions game, the offense saw the return of Watson and Jones. Down 27-3 coming out of the half, Love once again threatened the Lions with a comeback. Finding Watson for a short score mid-way through the third quarter and running another in himself to open the fourth. The Packers scored 14 unanswered. 

A stupid penalty on the following drive allowed the Lions to put the game away with another touchdown. Despite the comeback not being completed, Love’s resilience against adversity in this game cannot be understated. 

 

Future Outlook

Through four weeks, Love ranks, at best, as a top-20 to top-15 QB statistically. With still plenty of kinks to iron out, this is about as good of a start as I hoped for.

Love has demonstrated he is capable of leading the team regardless of the circumstances. The team as well has demonstrated their willingness to fight for Love as a leader. These are valuable traits that you simply cannot teach, and will go a long way in helping this team find success.

In the past, when punched in the mouth early, the Packers crumbled. In the two games where that happened this year, the Packers continued to fight to the last minute. This is something I love to see as a Packer fan.

2-2 after four weeks with a new QB under center is good. Before the year, the Packers were not even in the conversation for even competing for the division. Now with the Bears and Vikings crumbling, only the Lions, who have the edge over Green Bay with a win last week, stand in the way.

The slow starts need to be addressed, but the future is bright for Love. The Packers face the Raiders, Broncos, Vikings, and Rams in their next four matchups, with a bye week following the Raiders game. The Raiders, Broncos, and Vikings are 1-3 through four weeks, and the Rams are 2-2. Look for Love to improve more over the next four matchups, as these favorable matchups will allow a now nearly fully healthy offense to reach their potential. 

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