Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers’ offensive performance on Thanksgiving was a far cry from the last time they faced the Detroit Lions in Week 4, illustrating the growth and strides this young unit has made, especially as of late.
“We continue to work every week,” said Love said after the 29-22 win. “Obviously, we know it’s not going to be perfect, but the progress is there. But we continue to put that work in every week and build that chemistry.”
To put it simply, Love was excellent this time around. He completed 22 of his 32 pass attempts at 8.4 yards per pass with three touchdowns to no interceptions. Love continues to spread the ball around, with eight different players being targeted at least once. Jayden Reed continued to make splash plays, Christian Watson had his best game of the season, while Malik Heath filled in well for Dontayvion Wicks.
For comparison’s sake, Love was 23-for-36 in Week 4 at 6.8 yards per attempt with one touchdown to two interceptions. However, those Week 4 numbers don’t tell the whole story, either. The Green Bay offense had run just 11 plays that week by the time the Lions had 24 points on the board due to the defense not being able to get any stops and the offense going three-and-out on their first few possessions. So just about all of that production from Love came with the game already out of reach.
“It definitely feels different,” said Love about where the offense is now compared to Week 4. “I think it’s part of the process though. We are just taking it week-by-week. Focusing on what we can do throughout the week to get better. Focusing on the areas we can improve on and we are going out there and practicing really hard throughout the week then obviously you see the growth that’s starting to show every week.
“It’s just a testament to everybody showing up working, staying committed to the process, not comparing that things aren’t perfect so far. But just showing up with that mindset that we are going to work, get better, find ways to improve, and just keep stacking days.”
On Thanksgiving, Love continued to build upon his recent performances and proved that his outing this past Sunday against a porous Chargers secondary was no fluke, as he picked apart one of the best defenses in the NFL. Love was confident and decisive in the midst of all the chaos that this Lions defense will throw at opponents through stunts, blitzes, coverage disguises, and different personnel groupings. He took care of the football, was accurate, and continued to generate chunk plays. Beyond the numbers that Love put up, what makes this performance all the more impressive was that he did so without a run game to lean on.
The Packers have struggled to generate consistent push in the run game for much of the season and did not have Aaron Jones available. They also had to scramble on a short week and bring in Patrick Taylor from the New England practice squad and re-sign James Robinson to their own practice just to make sure they had enough running back depth. They also happened to be facing one of the best run defenses in football, with Detroit allowing just 3.8 yards per rush. Not surprisingly, it was tough sledding, with the Green Bay running backs averaging just over three yards per rush.
This then puts even more of the onus on the passing game, which has to shoulder the workload. Playing with a lead for much of the game allowed the run game to still somewhat be a factor, with 19 designed runs dialed up to Love’s 32 pass attempts, but this game fell on the arm of Love and the hands of his pass catchers. Green Bay knew their path to victory was going to have to come through the air. I imagine Detroit was well aware of that, which allows their pass rush to pin its ears back, and the defense as a whole to get into favorable matchups knowing a pass was coming.
Yet it was Love and the Packers receivers who controlled the game. Green Bay even uncharacteristically chose to receive the opening kickoff in an effort to take control of the game right away by being the first to put up points. On the opening play, Love connected with Christian Watson for a 53-yard gain on a downfield heave.
“I thought he was awesome the entire game,” said LaFleur of Love’s day. “He’s a cool customer. You can have really good conversations with him and I just never see him get too high or too low, whether it’s going good or not so good. He’s just a guy that’s really matured a lot over these last four years. It’s hard not to root for him, first and foremost. All those guys in the locker room love him. I can tell you all the coaches love him. His approach. He’s consistent in terms of who he is on a daily basis. He’s one of the guys and I think that’s always important from that position.”
While the play of the offensive line was a liability in Week 4, with Love under pressure on 48 percent of his dropbacks, this time, it was the catalyst behind Love’s performance. After being sacked five times and hit 11 in the previous matchup, Love was never sacked on Thanksgiving and was hit just four times. This affords him the time to go through his progressions and find the open pass-catcher, and it also affords the receivers additional time to create separation as well.
It’s not only Love’s play that has been elevated in recent weeks, but the offensive line play has improved and the young pass catchers are looking more comfortable. While through the first half of the season was filled with pure chaos around Love, now we are seeing what he is capable of when there is stability and consistency among the other 10 players on offense.
Of course, Green Bay always wanted to win games, but the ultimate goal of the 2023 season was to determine whether or not Love could be their starting quarterback of the future beyond the 2023 and 2024 seasons. As was always going to be the case, time was required, but now, with each passing week, the answer looks like a resounding yes. He can be that guy.
“It’s huge,” said Love about Thursday’s win. “Obviously, this is a big game, conference game, against a really good Lions team. So it’s huge just being able to come up here and put up the performance we did and just finish this game off. Obviously we all know what happened the first time we played them, just being able to bounce back and win this game with a great performance in all three phases was huge and that’s just going to give us that confidence going forward.”