Jordan Love Is Elite And If You Choose To Blame Him For The Packers Week 1 Loss Then You've Lost The Plot
Todd Rosenberg. Getty Images.One of the biggest losers of the NFL's first week was easily the Green Bay Packers. When you out-gain a team by nearly 200 years and lose by three scores, you're a loser. What happened in the 4th quarter on Sunday was simultaneously mind-blowing, but also something Packers fans are unfortunately fairly accustomed to experiencing at this point. This team does not close games out.
You can go up and down the list for reasons why Sunday happened. I'll accept pretty much everything outside of Jordan Love isn't the guy. In the following words you read will I sound like a Chargers fan defending Justin Herbert to the death, bringing up every excuse for failure besides my quarterback? Yeah maybe, but let's try to attack this topic rationally.
Let's start off with the nerd shit. Now hand up, this is what Jordan Love truthers shove down his critics' throats. When it comes to EPA (expected points added) he's the king. His normal stats (passing yards, TDs, INT) don't necessarily jump off the page, but when you look at the deeper stuff that's where he stands out as a dynamite top 10 quarterback. That's why when he appears on the wrong end of the EPA chart from Week 1 after another 4th quarter collapse you're going to get the Love haters coming out every end of the forest.
Fair play, but there's more to it here. Again, I get that I sound like a Herbert defender. I'll own it, but I refuse to accept he played poorly on Sunday if you understand everything that was happening. You first and foremost gotta realize how bad the Packers offensive line performed. It shouldn't be possible to be this bad. All of the numbers behind it are hard to believe.
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Look at how little time he had to throw on these plays, it's CRAZY. How did they score any points, let alone have a 4th quarter lead?
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The way I see it, the only reason the Packers held a commanding lead for the first three quarters is because Love was that good out there. Now once the 4th quarter rolled around that's when shit hit the fan from all angles. Love's play diminished, there's no defending that. He was so bad that it tanked his overall numbers.
The reason for that 4th quarter collapse? Sure Love wasn't good, but I mean you can only do so much with that bad of an offensive line. At some point you're going to make mistakes getting rushed that quickly and being hit so often.
When you actually see the type of plays Love was making in those first three quarters I think that changes the narrative that the EPA is showing. This is what Love had to do to succeed. Will anyone who wants to believe he sucks want to see this? Of course not.
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Is Love absolved from the Packers current six-game losing streak? Does he gets a pass for getting out-scored 47-6 over his last two games which resulted in blown games to divisional opponents? No, when you're the QB of the team that shit falls squarely on you, especially when you're making $55M a year. Being an elite QB means you're able to overcome your team's deficiencies, but at some point something has to give. I'm not sure how many QBs out there win that game on Sunday with that poor of an o-line.
The fact of the matter is that if they don't fix this issue soon he won't be the quarterback for much longer.
Protect this man, give him time, and they're going to score a ton of points.
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Don't and he will actually die out there. It's not rocket science.
This is what happens you had an o-line problem last year, lost guys in the offseason, and didn't address anything afterwards. They've got the Jets on the road this week who are coming off a wire to wire win against the Titans. Now yes, it was the Titans, but you know what the Jets have? A really good offensive line. Even a bad QB like Geno is going to look competent behind one of those. Last year he played with one of the worst units in the game in Vegas. Now he's got time to throw. What a concept.