GREEN BAY, Wis. — Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love hasn’t felt this good moving around on the field since Week 1 in Brazil. He might not have even felt great then, given the shoddy surface on which Green Bay lost to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Against the Chicago Bears last Sunday, the biggest takeaway from Love’s performance wasn’t that he threw his 11th interception — tied with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Seattle Seahawks’ Geno Smith for the most in the league. The Packers obviously don’t want those, but head coach Matt LaFleur said he won’t get hung up on Love sailing one pass on an afternoon in which he was “really proud” of his quarterback’s play. The biggest takeaway wasn’t Love’s play from the pocket, either, like his precise 15-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jayden Reed after catching the Bears with 12 men on the field for a free play or his completion to wideout Christian Watson for a 60-yard gain while absorbing a hit.
Perhaps the most significant development from Green Bay’s narrow win over Chicago was how Love’s legs looked when creating plays off-schedule. Two prime examples stand out: First, his 48-yard completion to Watson on which Love scrambled right and heaved the ball deep downfield on the run. Second, his 13-yard scramble to the 1-yard line and stretch near the pylon to set up a tush-push touchdown on the next play that gave the Packers a lead they didn’t relinquish late in the fourth quarter.
Massive effort by Jordan Love
📺: #GBvsCHI on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/mF8NGoHZTe— NFL (@NFL) November 17, 2024
This season hasn’t been smooth sailing for Love. He sprained his MCL on the third-to-last play of the season opener and missed the next two games. He played the next four games before suffering a groin injury on the Packers’ opening drive against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8 and missed most of the second half. Love has played while not 100 percent this season because of a pair of lower-body injuries that affect his mobility, and he even hinted last Wednesday that he wasn’t 100 percent healthy entering the Bears game. But if Love can move as he did in Chicago, both in manipulating the pocket and creating plays off-schedule for himself or his pass catchers, the Packers offense will be much better off.
“A lot,” LaFleur said when asked how much more is available to Green Bay’s offense when Love moves like he did Sunday. “When called upon to move out of the pocket, he did a great job in that regard. … It’s hard to defend a lot of plays, but specifically the second part of that play in the passing game. There’s no defense for a scramble drill.”
Technically, there is a defense for a scramble drill, but it’s not easy to pull off. The Packers know it, just like other teams that face a mobile Love do. For example, linebacker Quay Walker couldn’t attack Bears quarterback Caleb Williams near the sideline on one because if he left his man nearby, Williams would’ve floated the ball over Walker’s head for a long catch-and-run touchdown. It’s a lose-lose, with the loss Walker took being much less detrimental than allowing a touchdown. In some scramble situations, the best solution for a defense is to let the quarterback run and leave your assignment to force him down or out of bounds as soon as possible after he crosses the line of scrimmage.
If the quarterback chooses to throw outside the pocket or on the run instead of taking off himself, it stresses a defense while requiring players to remain on their assignments longer. Offensive players have the distinct advantage in scramble situations with the ability to dart around outside the framework of their route to find any sliver of space for their quarterback.
“It’s super difficult at times when throws are off-schedule because you got plaster rules and you gotta be able to, once you get a man, you gotta stay on that man and you can’t start looking around,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “Because if you do, somebody gonna pop open.”
It’s a challenge McKinney expects to face Sunday against quarterback Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers.
“I think they do a great job of that,” McKinney said. “A lot of their guys know, this throw might be off-rhythm … and they’ll start pivoting and start doing different things to kind of get them open, and they do a great job of just getting open for him and kind of getting back into his field of vision, and he’s able to make those throws.”
Jordan Love says it’s “huge” to have Christian Watson available every week, which he wasn’t in his first two seasons.
“Something that he’s been working on a good amount.”
Love calls Watson one of the faster players in the NFL. pic.twitter.com/yW5mzqYX7H
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) November 20, 2024
Packers quarterback coach Tom Clements said one of Love’s notable areas of improvement last season was keeping his head up when scrambling for bigger passing plays downfield. There have been multiple instances since when Love has had green pastures to run but has thrown instead for bigger gains.
One of those was against the Jaguars this season, when Love was hobbled after his groin injury earlier in the game but had plenty of space to run for a first down on second-and-6 from Green Bay’s 24-yard line after defensive tackle Tyler Lacy beat left guard Elgton Jenkins to flush Love out of the pocket. Instead, Love hit tight end Tucker Kraft deep over the middle at Jacksonville’s 45-yard line, and Kraft broke a tackle before earning another 36 yards after the catch.
Love was hampered by his groin injury then and still created something from an adverse situation. Now that he’s healthy, those plays should come easier and perhaps more often. That’ll be a challenge Sunday since the 49ers rank third in the NFL in explosive pass rate allowed, according to TruMedia.
But the Packers rank fourth in the NFL in explosive pass rate on offense. They’re no slouches in that regard, either, and they should be even more dangerous now that their quarterback can move better than he has since the first game of the season.
“I think it’s huge,” center Josh Myers said. “I think you could see it Sunday. It’s super helpful. For him, some of his biggest plays are on those plays and what he’s able to do when he gets out of the pocket. It’s great to have him moving great again.”
“He looked way better,” Reed said, “and that’s gonna be great for our offense moving forward.”
“Just being able to move around and make plays outside of the on-schedule plays is definitely a big part of our offense,” Love said. “I think when we can do that, we have more explosive plays that we’re capable of, but I think we’re a good offense regardless.”
