{"id":10610,"date":"2025-01-15T11:59:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T11:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=10610"},"modified":"2025-01-15T11:59:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T11:59:38","slug":"why-jordan-love-matt-lafleur-are-still-right-for-packers-despite-need-for-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=10610","title":{"rendered":"Why Jordan Love, Matt LaFleur are still right for Packers despite need for improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTWfJW5CY6t4sneUpIg9t2riIWHR04XQJD8FQ&amp;s\" alt=\"Why Jordan Love, Matt LaFleur are still right for Packers despite need for  improvement - The Athletic\" \/><\/p>\n<p>GREEN BAY, Wis. \u2014 Packers head coach Matt LaFleur asked three questions at his season-ending press conference Tuesday and answered each immediately with one word.<\/p>\n<p>The first centered around his 26-year-old, $220 million quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo I think he can play better? Absolutely,\u201d LaFleur said of Jordan Love. \u201cDo I think I can help him out and be better? Absolutely. Do I think we can play better around him? Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LaFleur is right. He and Love need to be better for the Packers to ultimately achieve what they want, a Super Bowl, as does Love\u2019s supporting cast of blockers and pass catchers on offense. It\u2019s often difficult to accurately assess praise and blame without knowing exactly what goes into each play \u2014 who made the call, what the priorities are before and after the snap, if each player fulfilled their assignment, etc.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">LIVE: Head Coach Matt LaFleur meets with the media\u00a0\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/saetfJ4d0g\">https:\/\/t.co\/saetfJ4d0g<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Green Bay Packers (@packers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/packers\/status\/1879183474864578722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>For example, likely nobody outside the building would\u2019ve known that wide receiver Malik Heath was partially at fault for Love\u2019s second interception against the Eagles because he ran his route 5 yards too shallow until LaFleur revealed as much two days after his team\u2019s season ended.<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s difficult to say just how much better the head coach and quarterback need to be or, on the other end of the spectrum, exactly how good each was during Green Bay\u2019s 11-win season without dissecting each play with coaches and\/or players while hooking them up to a lie detector.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing that\u2019s certain for now is that, while the Packers need more from LaFleur and Love for the team to reach its full potential, they\u2019re still the right head coach and quarterback to lead the organization forward in its pursuit of a Super Bowl. Even if a section of the fanbase seems to feel otherwise in the wake of this season\u2019s disappointing end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s obviously areas that I improved on, that the team improved on, and there\u2019s some stuff I want to clean up, be better at, for sure,\u201d Love said. \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of the game. It\u2019s never going to be perfect. There\u2019s always going to be things to get better at, improve on. But that\u2019ll definitely be part of the offseason. Just go back, watch the games, make lists of things I can improve on and be better at. But I think we did some really good things as an offense and I think there\u2019s a lot of stuff that we left out there that we could have done a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For LaFleur, he had issues with clock management, some play calling and discipline relating to his team\u2019s post-play penalties. His team was 0-6 against the NFC\u2019s three best teams and he couldn\u2019t help rectify the offense\u2019s slow starts that plagued the Packers against those teams.<\/p>\n<p>No matter how much fault he carried in those instances, at least part of it lies on the head coach who calls the offense. Yet he\u2019s the head coach of a team that just became the second-youngest one by average age to make the playoffs in the last 45 years, trailing only the team LaFleur coached in 2023 while winning two more games than last season. Even if it\u2019s hard to put the finger on every specific thing LaFleur has done right and wrong, it\u2019s impossible to deny he\u2019s an above-average coach in the NFL, perhaps even better.<\/p>\n<p>We all saw what LaFleur did with an offense quarterbacked by Malik Willis. It was the stuff of an offensive genius. And though the Packers\u2019 offense sputtered to the finish line this season, LaFleur still saw growth on that side of the ball as they finished eighth in points per game and fifth in yards per game after finishing 12th and 11th in those categories, respectively, last season.<\/p>\n<p>For Love, he needs to improve his footwork, accuracy and decision-making at times (the newsiest bit from Tuesday was that longtime Packers QB coach Tom Clements is retiring, so Love will have another position coach teaching him all that). Love wasn\u2019t nearly good enough late this season, but he also had a supremely efficient stretch of games after Green Bay\u2019s bye week \u2014 LaFleur said that was the best football he\u2019d ever seen Love play \u2014 so it\u2019s not like the second half of this season was all bad. He has plenty of room to grow before Green Bay realistically enters title contention, but there have been enough flashes of playmaking ability, sack and interception avoidance, and pristine arm strength and accuracy to believe the $220 million extension was a wise investment given the point Love was at in his contract and what the market dictated.<\/p>\n<p>Love ranks eighth in EPA per dropback and 14th in passer rating since the start of the 2023 season, according to TruMedia. Those numbers are modest, especially considering the money he\u2019s making. But it\u2019s worthwhile acknowledging that Love\u2019s career wasn\u2019t going to be linear and he\u2019s still only started two seasons. He played at a near-MVP level in the second half of his first season as a starter and was unlikely to replicate that. He took a step back and was inconsistent this season, in part because of multiple injuries but also because of regression, and now must ensure that trend reverses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love Jordan Love and how he competes and the work he puts in and I think he\u2019s going to get better and better and better,\u201d LaFleur said. \u201cAnd certainly there\u2019s some lessons along the way, some tough lessons, any time you end up in defeat. That\u2019s hard to deal with. But he is very critical of himself and he does such a great job of learning from every experience, so I think through this we\u2019ll all be better for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Count Tucker Kraft as someone who believes in Love, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s just a killer,\u201d the second-year tight end said Monday. \u201cJordan has that mentality. He has that mindset. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve seen someone more confident in the people around him because of the leadership that he provides for the team, that serving leadership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s going to lead from the front. He\u2019s going to bring everybody up around him. He expects a lot of us and he shows that with the way he puts the ball in certain positions, whether he\u2019s throwing it down the red line to the wideout or he\u2019s just propping the ball up on one of my shoulders and giving me a chance to drop-step, get vertical. It\u2019s just about the way he trusts us to perform. We\u2019ve got to get on his rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cornerback Keisean Nixon, when asked if LaFleur and Love are the right pair to lead the team to a Super Bowl, said, \u201cIt will never just be (on) Matt or on Jordan.\u201d And he too is right, as the head coach and quarterback will look better if the pass catchers do the catching part far better than they did this season (Green Bay ranked sixth-worst in drops with 29, per Pro Football Focus) and if the offensive line blocks far better than it did against the Eagles.<\/p>\n<p>Even if the Packers\u2019 offense improved on paper from last season, the last couple of games and Love\u2019s dip in 2024 leave a sour taste. So too does how the second season of a new era concluded after the first raised expectations perhaps ahead of schedule in this organizational retool.<\/p>\n<p>Such is life in Green Bay, constantly striving for a level others would do anything for. So yes, it\u2019s understandable to be frustrated with the head coach and quarterback, but don\u2019t be so quick to throw either of them overboard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"writerBioText\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green Bay&#8217;s offense stumbled to the finish line this season, but still showed signs of growth in Year 2 with Love at the helm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-10610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-bay-packers","tag-green-bay-packers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Jordan Love, Matt LaFleur are still right for Packers despite need for improvement - Breaking News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=10610\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Jordan Love, Matt LaFleur are still right for Packers despite need for improvement - 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