Jordan Love has long ago proven that he will be the Green Bay Packers starting quarterback for the foreseeable future. But let’s put his on-field performances to the side for a minute. As a person, as in who Love is day in and day out, he was the exact type of leader this 2023 Packers team needed.
“I think it’s been pretty consistent,” said Matt LaFleur of Love, “and he’s true to who he is. He’s not trying to be someone he’s not. I think he’s a genuine person. I think that’s easy to follow. You guys have been around him, and I think you all feel the same way I feel about him, just he’s a great person first and foremost.”
From Love’s first practice as the guy in Green Bay during OTAs early on in the summer, his even-keeled approach stood out immediately. If you didn’t watch the result of the play and only focused on Love, you wouldn’t have known what the result was. Good, bad, or indifferent, Love was steady.
That demeanor proved to be invaluable. You can’t calculate it. You don’t know how exactly it shows up on Sundays, but I truly believe it was a key factor for this current version of the Green Bay Packers.
Not that Love didn’t have his own areas to improve upon, but around him for the first half of the season was pure chaos. There wasn’t a run game to lean on. The pass protection was up and down, while receivers dropped passes and ran the wrong routes.
Yet, despite all of that — which contributed to a four-game losing streak, multiple first-half stretches where even getting a first down felt like a tall task, and many on the outside wondering if Love was the answer at quarterback — Love remained calm and cool.
As a first-time starting quarterback working with the youngest offense in the NFL, and with how the Packers season unfolded through the first eight games, getting frustrated would have been easy. But Love continued to go about his business and continued to be the same person regardless of how each week unfolded.
“They used to call it an energy vampire,” said Jayden Reed. “Whatever energy someone else is giving off, that’s what you receive. Him being poised and so calm, that goes throughout the whole offense, every room, and that translates to gameday and on the field. Just seeing him, how calm he is, how poised he is – never gets too high, never gets too low – I think that helps the whole offense out.”
That energy, as Reed put it, isn’t tangible, but it’s real. Players can feed off of it–or if it’s negative, it can be a detractor. And it’s that poise, along with the work that Love’s teammates see him put in and his performance in practice, that inspired belief.
Even when things seemed to be at their worst for this Packers team, in that locker room, the question wasn’t if things were going to get turned around, but rather when. Perhaps no one was truly sure of when was going to be, but they knew it would arrive at some point.
If there was panic, you weren’t going to see it from the outside.
“It just gives the whole team that mentality,” said Aaron Jones of Love’s cool demeanor. “Your quarterback is not panicking. He’s calm, cool, and collected. He leads, we follow, and everybody plays for him as well.”
But it’s not only how Love carries himself that endeared him to his teammates. It’s also the gestures he’s made, as the quarterback and as the leader, off the football field throughout the season.
On two occasions, Love has had the entire offensive unit over to his house for dinner. On Tuesdays – a typical off day in the NFL – Love and the skill position players would get together to watch film to all gain a better understanding of what everyone was seeing and how Love wants them to react in certain situations.
Every Thursday, Love, along with fellow quarterbacks Sean Clifford and Alex McGough, go to dinner with the offensive line unit.
“We have an O-Line, quarterbacks dinner every Thursday night,” said Jon Runyan. “We bounce between various restaurants around here. Jordan is always there. As a leader, he has this non-verbal leadership that you get this sense and feeling that radiates off of him.
“Never see him shaken at all. He’s always really focused. Ready to go at all times, you can see it in his eyes. You can feel it in his voice as well. It kind of calms you down as an offensive line, knowing that your quarterback is back there, whether he’s taking a hit, taking a sack, it doesn’t matter, he’s going to get up and play the next play. He’s there for you. He cares for you and he’s going to do whatever he can to protect you.”
Back on the football field, wide receivers coach Jason Vrable mentioned on a few occasions that when drops happened, it was Love who was the first one there to put his arm around the young pass-catchers saying, “Don’t worry, I’m coming back to you,” as Vrable phrased it. Those little moments, from the leader, from your quarterback, builds confidence over time.
Again, how do you quantify all of that? Well, you can’t. But it absolutely matters. Players are going to fight for a teammate and a leader like Love because of all those qualities that he has shown throughout the year–and very little of that actually has to do with what’s taking place on the field.
When we look at just how this Packers team was able to turn things around from being on the brink of their season ending in an ugly fashion to now playing in the NFC Divisional Round, as always, there are many factors.
More notably, some of these factors include the experienced gain by the young offense, which resulted in better execution, along with the coaching staff having a better idea of what each player does well and putting them in positions to succeed.
Another part of the equation is who Love is. It takes a certain kind of individual to navigate the ups and downs and general uncertainty that the Packers experienced for a large portion of the season while still fostering confidence and belief in that locker room.
On the field and off, Jordan Love was the right man for this job.
“Honestly, I don’t know how he stays so calm,” added Jones. “I think it’s just the person he is. He doesn’t let anything get to him. You never see him rattled. He’s always calm, cool, and collected at all times. I’ve never seen a high and a low. It’s always the same person you’re always going to get. You know what you’re going to get out of him, and that’s what we love above J-Love. He’s our QB. He does it all.”