Hey, Packer Nation. I know the season started rough. I know the Packer’s play in October made you want to bury your head in the sand. I know that his stats were generally middle of the pack by season’s end. But if you hang to the end of this piece, despite all that, I’m gonna convince you that Jordan Love is the best QB in the NFC.
The critical lens of analysis for Jordan’s season is to look at it as two distinct halves.
First Half
In the 1st half of the season, he was simply figuring out how to play in the NFL. He’d had 3 years of practice, but only one start, and live bullets are just different. The Packers missed QB sneak in ATL was emblematic of this problem: It was a critical juncture in a game that was well within reach, but as Jordan admitted after the game, he got the snap count wrong which botched the play and ended the team’s chance to advance. The Packers would go on to lose by 1 point:
The early games were persistently plagued by moments like this, missed opportunities that cost the team games.
Second Half
The second half was the complete opposite. When Jordan Love started trusting himself and his teammates, he was the best QB in the league. Love finished the season with 32 TD passes which was second in the NFL to Dak Prescott’s 36. What is crazy about that figure, however, is that most of that production came after week 8. Look at Jordan’s November/December stats below, he went nuclear. No other QB had a 2nd half like he did, which is exactly what Packer fans were hoping to see. We knew that Jordan wouldn’t be the best QB to start the year, but we hoped that he would grow noticeably by season’s end. And he delivered in a big way!
Love’s 11 TD/1 INT in December is almost as good as you’ll ever see a QB play, and all those games were pressure-filled, must-win contests.
So what should we expect for an encore? I predict this growth trend to continue and, by year’s end, Jordan Love will be widely considered the best QB in the NFC. What QB would you take over him right now? Purdy, who has had 5 interceptions dropped in his playoff games? Dak, who has shown no ability to rise to the occasion in the biggest games? Jalen, who faded down the stretch after the 49ers showed the league how to combat him? Stafford, who is in declining health as he turns 36?
Or would you rather have Love, who, like Neo in the Matrix, seemed to unlock his full potential once he started to believe he is the one. If Love can be among the best in the league with only half a season in full command of his powers, what will he do with a whole year? I don’t think it a stretch to expect Love to be the best QB in the NFC, which should have the Packers in contention for the NFC Championship once again.
