The Week 6 bye week for the Green Bay Packers comes at a good time, especially after how much the team struggled in their Week 5 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. The development of Jordan Love, which has certainly had its mountains and valleys this year, should be the most important topic of upcoming bye week meetings.

Season Assessment

Eight touchdowns, six interceptions, 1,083 passing yards, and a 55.6 completion percentage are the statistical takeaways for Love through his first five games this season, which aren’t terrible when you look at them as a whole.

But when you consider how Love started the year (road games against the Bears and Falcons), his recent trend of games has showcased some concerning trends. Forced into games that have required 30+ pass attempts the past three weeks, the offensive play-calling has certainly not done Love any favors.

Granted, injuries to Aaron Jones, Christian Watson, and David Bakhtiari don’t help matters, but there have been too many inconsistencies from Matt LaFleur when it comes to an offensive gameplan. So up to this point, Love has been better than average, but there are a lot of solvable errors that can elevate his game even further.

Next Steps

There are many levels to how LaFleur and the offensive coaching staff need to tackle conversations this week, starting with game preparation.

It was very obvious last week against the Raiders that LaFleur had put together a plan to feature Aaron Jones a ton. But with the somewhat-surprising announcement that Jones was not suiting up for last week’s MNF, the game plan ended up having some holes in it.

A heavy reliance on AJ Dillon limited the impact running backs had on the game, forcing Love into a tough situation that resulted in three interceptions. His turnovers were a mix of bad throws and bad luck, but it didn’t seem to rattle Love too much, although the final drive of the game didn’t result in a score for Green Bay.

LaFleur needs to step up and help out his young QB, something that can happen if he just instills easier play calls, more fluidity into early-game game script, and utilizes his weapons better, which focally should include Jones (once healthy).

There are multiple ways for LaFleur and the offensive coaching staff to make both their lives and Love’s easier, but it starts at the top. It is too early in the season to have thoughts of giving up – this was likely going to be a rebuilding year after all.

The shine of LaFleur seems to be starting to wear off to the fan base – but he still remains the right coach for this team. An easy way he could look to try and rectify those feelings would be to make big changes in the offense that put Love in better scenarios.

This isn’t going to be a one-week fix for Green Bay, and it certainly won’t be fully implemented over the bye week, so things will take time. But progress is what we deserve to see, and the coaching staff needs to be able to deliver at least that.

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Mike Johrendt has been an avid fan of the Packers ever since he can remember. He is now a writer at PackersTalk and you can follow him on Twitter at @MJohrendt23

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