Tag: Jordan Love

Former Rutgers Bo Melton scores TD for Packers in NFC Divisional game

Bo Melton had a big day for the Green Bay Packers on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers season came to an end in a 24-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. While the Packers were unable to knock off the top seed in the NFC, there were a few bright spots. That includes former Rutgers star Bo Melton.

In his second career playoff game, the New Jersey native made his presence felt. With the Packers trailing by one in the third quarter, Jordan Love found Melton open for a 19-yard touchdown pass. It was Melton’s only catch of the game, but he made it count.

Additionally, the touchdown gave Green Bay a 13-7 lead before the 49ers offense came storming back. For the former Rutger star, it is a moment he will never forget.

 

While the Packers will now shift their focus to next season, Saturday represented an important milestone for Melton. He was activated from the practice squad on November 29 and appeared in five games during the regular season. In that span, he hauled in 16 catches for 218 yards. He also averaged 13.6 yards a catch.

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In the playoffs, Melton continued to make an impact with two catches for 26 yards. Although the Packers fell short of their goals, they surpassed all expectations with a young roster. Melton hopes to be part of their future and, with his first postseason touchdown, showed that he warrants some consideration.

Jordan Love’s final interception was a bit too much like a certain Brett Favre mistake

Jordan Love’s game-sealing interception against the 49ers reminded everybody a bit too much of a former Brett Favre mistake.

The deep cross-body throw is one of the most difficult feats a quarterback can attempt — it is not a high-percentage play. You’re throwing against your own momentum, usually with one or more angry defenders in your face, and you’re trying to hit a target 30 or more yards downfield, when you factor in the horizontal yardage involved. And if you’re making a throw like that in a game-defining situation.., well, you’d better be pretty sure of yourself.

One quarterback who was always sure of himself, to his own detriment at times, was Hall of Famer and negatively creative financeur Brett Favre. Ol’ No. 4 did most of his work with the Green Bay Packers, but near the end of the Minnesota Vikings’ 2009 season, Favre threw a cross-body pick to New Orleans Saints cornerback Tracy Porter, causing the game to go into overtime. The Saints drove downfield, won the game with a 40-yard Garrett Hartley field goal, and we had the game that changed the overtime rules.

In Saturday’s divisional-round game between the Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, it was Jordan Love who had a similar situation. With 52 seconds left in the game, and the 49ers up 24-21, Love tried a deep cross-body pass to receiver Christian Watson that was intercepted by linebacker Dre Greenlaw.

The throws, and the results, were alarmingly similar.

“I haven’t looked at it yet,” Love said after the game of that last throw. “I haven’t looked at any pictures, so looking back on it, yeah, throw it away. I don’t know if I had an opportunity to be able to run. Maybe get out of bounds, but I forced it across the middle late, which is a mortal sin. It’s something I’ll look at. That’s an area right there where I’ll be able to look at, grow from and get better in the future.”

Jordan Love gave NFL fans Brett Favre flashbacks after he threw a baffling interception to end Packers’ season

Jordan Love paid tribute to Brett Favre by throwing one of the worst interceptions ever.

Saturday night was a rough start to Jordan Love’s postseason career. And after an awful final sequence, he’s going to be compared a lot more to the wrong Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame quarterback.

After a late San Francisco comeback, an uneven Love (who had already thrown a pick earlier) was tasked with rescuing the Packers’ season. With just under a minute left, he responded by running right and throwing across his body deep back to the middle of the field, where a swarm of 49ers defenders was waiting to make a play on the ball.

Dre Greenlaw did, intercepting Love (again) on a horrific decision that may haunt him and the Packers for their entire offseason:

What was notable about this Love interception was how similar it was to when an erratic Brett Favre — the NFL’s all-time leader in thrown interceptions — threw a season-ending pick to the New Orleans Saints during the 2009 NFC title game. In fact, it almost literally looks like the same play in mostly the same situation:

It’s still way too early to make any definitive conclusion about Love and his career prospects in Green Bay. Sometimes, when he makes sparkling off-platform throws in the pocket, he resembles Aaron Rodgers. And sometimes, when he trusts his playmaking a little too much and goes for it all at the worst possible time, he looks just like Favre. Though, to be fair to Love, Rodgers never beat the 49ers in the playoffs, either. So maybe he is still more similar to his predecessor. For now.

But for the most part, Saturday night was an excellent example of Love living up to a Favre-like reputation, especially on the Packers’ season-ending play.

Watch: Dre Greenlaw snags interception on tipped pass from Packers’ Jordan Love

Following a tipped pass from Jordan Love, the 49ers linebacker came down with a timely interception.

After having to punt the ball away while trailing by seven points in the second half, the San Francisco 49ers leaned on their defensive unit to hold Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers.

Facing a third down, Love opted to hit his tight end, Tucker Kraft, underneath. Instead, the ball tipped off Kraft’s hands high into the air. 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw was standing underneath the ball, corralling the much-needed interception.

With Greenlaw’s clutch pick, the 49ers defense gave their offense positive field position at the Green Bay 48 yard line with the chance to tie the game.

Via @49ers on Twitter:

This post originally appeared on Niners Wire! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter! 

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Ian Rapoport: Packers and Jordan Love expected to do ‘massive’ contract extension this spring

Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Packers and Jordan Love are expected to a “massive” contract extension this spring.

A new, massive contract extension is expected for Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love this spring, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.

Love signed a two-year deal last May that Rapoport described as a “band-aid” contract as the 2020 first-round pick entered his first year as the starting quarterback in Green Bay. After a standout season and an elite stretch of play down the stretch, Love and the Packers are expected to figure out a lucrative new deal that will extend his contract well past the 2024 season.

“My understanding is that, as he enters the final year of his contract, again, the Packers and Love representation are expected to address this,” Rapoport reported on NFL Network Saturday. “This coming spring, do not be surprised if he does get that massive, franchise quarterback-type contract extension, and the further he goes in the playoffs, the richer he is going to be.”

Love’s current contract would pay only $11 million in total salary in 2024.

Any contract extension placing Love in the top 10 for average would cost the Packers $40 million per year in new money. The top five would require $49 million per year or more.

The timeline moving forward? A new deal can’t be finalized until a year after his previous contract, so the two sides would have to wait until May to officially sign the extension.

Love has already hit numerous incentives tied into his deal, including a top-10 finish in passing touchdowns and a playoff win.

Love threw 32 touchdown passes and went over 4,000 passing yards over 17 starts in 2023, becoming just the third first-year starter in NFL history to hit both benchmarks (Kurt Warner, Patrick Mahomes). He led the Packers to a 6-2 finish and playoff qualification as the No. 7 seed, and he stunned the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Wild Card Round by throwing three touchdown passes and producing a near-perfect passer rating in the 48-32 win at AT&T Stadium.

Love and the Packers are in San Francisco to play the top-seeded 49ers on Saturday night. Another upset win — and an incredible run to the NFC title game — would only increase the cost of the Packers keeping Love in Green Bay long-term.

Ravens, 49ers have the advantage of defenses that can do anything… and everything

The Ravens and 49ers are the one-seeds in the playoffs, and they both have defenses without specific tendencies. That’s not a coincidence.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — the two one-seeds in the 2023 NFL playoffs — have defenses without a specific coverage type. In today’s NFL, with more formational and schematic concepts on offense, if you go out on the field without some things to mess up the opposing quarterback with different things, you’re left with an execution-based defense, and there’s very little margin for error if that’s the case.

The Cleveland Browns discovered that in their wild-card loss to the Houston Texans. In that 45-14 Houston win, the Browns stuck with their usual plan, to their direct detriment. C.J. Stroud had demolished single-high coverage all season long, and the Browns had run a higher rate of single-high in the regular season than any other defense. Cleveland decided to stay there in this game, and Stroud completed 12 of 16 passes for both of his touchdowns. On none of those 16 attempts did the Browns throw any kind of late movement at Stroud. It was line ’em up, and let’s go.

Browns’ refusal to adapt on defense cost them dearly against C.J. Stroud

When the Texans face the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday in the divisional round, Stroud will be tested in ways he certainly wasn’t last week. The Ravens do not have a specific coverage type. This season, they’ve run single-high coverage on 46.4% of their snaps, and two-high on 53.3% of their snaps. It’s been Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-6 in that order. You don’t know what you’re going to get from snap to snap, they do all of it well, and they’re very adept with coverage switches. 

The Ravens have made it very clear that the Stroud they’re dealing with now is a much more evolved than the Stroud that tried to navigate it all in his regular-season debut. The best way to counter that evolution is to make Stroud work through different coverage concepts. Mike Macdonald’s defense has no problem with that.

The Ravens know they’re dealing with a different C.J. Stroud this time around

On this deep incompletion against the Ravens in Week 1, Stroud had to manage a couple of things. First, Baltimore threw a six-man blitz at him with defensive back Kyle Hamilton off the edge, edge defender Odafe Oweh dropping into coverage, and linebacker Roquan Smith coming from the second level. And pre-snap, the Ravens showed a defined single-high look before moving to Cover-2. Brandon Stephens joined safety Marcus Williams as the second two-high defender. The combination of pressure and coverage must have made Stroud feel as if he had 13 or 14 defenders arrayed against him, and a near-interception was the result.

The 49ers, who play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, are another amorphous coverage defense.They’ve played 50% single-high this season, and two-high 50% of the time. It’s Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-2 in that order. The 49ers flip to a bit more single-high on third down, but as is the case with the Ravens, they play what works for them and they don’t change a lot from a systemic point in a situational sense. 

Packers quarterback Jordan Love has been as good as anybody playing his position in the second half of the season, but even the best quarterbacks can be made uncomfortable when faced with the right concepts in concert. In Week 2 against the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford, the 49ers got an interception by disguising their intentions. Stafford is a 15-year NFL veteran with as developed a sense of what defenses will do as any quarterback you’ll ever meet, but here, Steve Wilks’ defense won the day.

Stafford would have 2-Man coverage to deal with post-snap, but that wasn’t the look pre-snap. With a single-high safety, and linebacker Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw close to the line of scrimmage, Stafford probably thought he’d have something easy over the middle of the field. This was a four-man rush in which the 49ers plastered Stafford’s receivers all over the field, and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir jumped Stafford’s backside slant for the pick.

No matter the quarterback you’re facing, you have a better chance of beating him if your defense is creative enough to throw as many different looks at him as possible, with the discipline to have everyone together on their assignments. The Ravens and 49ers each have this on lock, and again, it’s probably not a coincidence that the two best overall teams in the Final Eight can say that about themselves.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into both defenses, and how they’re able to switch things up at such a high level.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Football aside, Jordan Love was the right person to lead the 2023 Packers

Jordan Love’s calmness and poise made him the perfect person to lead the 2023 Green Bay Packers.

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.”

Win or lose, the Packers’ young guns are going out in a blaze of glory

Don’t confuse the Packers’ youth for weakness. The Green Bay Packers are a confident team that is ready for any obstacle.

Minnesota Vikings Hall of Fame defensive tackle John Randle had one of the most quotable NFL Films sound bites of all time when he yelled, “Regulators, mount up!” quoting Emilio Estevez’s Billy the Kid.

Funny enough, though, it is the hated Green Bay Packers who are the NFL’s young guns, and their sharp-shooting quarterback has them within one more shootout of getting to the NFC Championship Game.

With an average of 25.7 years of age, the Packers have the youngest roster in the NFL, but that hasn’t fazed them in the slightest. Since Week 12, their offense is second in the league in EPA per play, trailing only the San Francisco 49ers. They are also third in success rate in that time frame, and their young leader has emerged as one of the best gunslingers in the NFL.

In the final seven weeks of the season, Jordan Love was second in the NFL in EPA per dropback, and he led the NFL in CPOE. Love also finished sixth in the NFL in DYAR and DVOA (min. 200 attempts). The Utah State product has been one of the best deep ball passers this year as well, finishing fifth in deep-ball completions and third in yards off deep balls.

Love’s emergence as one of the most complete passers in the game has been the silver bullet in the revolver for the Packers’ group of youthful playmakers. Jayden Reed caught 64 passes and eight touchdowns. Romeo Doubs matched Reed’s eight touchdown catches. Dontayvion Wicks had north of 500 yards. Both Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave became vital parts of the intermediate passing game as well, averaging over 10 yards per catch apiece. And don’t forget about Christian Watson, who missed time with injury but averaged 15 yards per reception in the nine regular-season games he played. Every one of the Packers’ top six receivers is a rookie or in his second season — that is unheard of in terms of a team that just won a playoff game. This isn’t a group that has shaky hands when it comes time to pull the trigger; this is a motley crew of young, confident desperados who just kicked in the doors of the corral, took what they wanted and knew that there was nothing their opponents could do about it.

Now the Packers are reaching the climax of their cinematic season. They face an absolute wagon of a 49ers team that will look to exploit their 27th-ranked defense in terms of DVOA. The Packers defense hasn’t been good when it comes to early-down pass defense, and the 49ers lead the NFL in empty formations on first down, doing so 6 percent of the time. Green Bay’s defense was 26th in yards allowed per drive; the 49ers’ offense led the NFL in yards per drive.

San Francisco will look to kill the Packers with a thousand cuts. Green Bay’s defense played phenomenally against Dallas in the wild-card round, but there is a large difference between playing a Mike McCarthy offense and a Kyle Shanahan offense. The 49ers painted those end zones red, they’re going to be well rested, and they will be out to make an example of Brown County Regulators.

Metaphorically, the Packers are already pinned down and surrounded, ready to make their final stand with all odds against them. That said, this team has shown all season that they aren’t afraid of the moment. They aren’t afraid of the 49ers riding in on their white steeds ready to hold down their fort. Will they come out victorious? No one seems to like their odds. But win or lose, this iteration of the Green Bay Packers, and the young guns who lead them, are going down swinging, guns up in a blaze of glory.

Steve Wilks: Slowing Packers QB Jordan Love starts with stopping the run

The #49ers have a plan to slow down red-hot Packers QB Jordan Love … but will it work?

There aren’t many quarterbacks playing better than Packers QB Jordan Love. After an up-and-down start to the year, Love has stabilized significantly and over his last nine games he’s thrown for 2,422 yards with 21 touchdowns and only one interception. His mobility and big arm make him a threat to take over any game, and slowing him down is a tall task for the 49ers defense and their coordinator Steve Wilks.

Wilks on Wednesday in his press conference talked about how the team might slow down the Packers’ young signal caller. Given all of his physical gifts it won’t be easy to simply bottle him up, so Wilks pointed to stopping the Packers run game first.

“Well, I think the number one thing is we have to try to stop this run to try to make them one-dimensional,” Wilks said. “They’re very effective running a ball. I think it just opens up the play action. That’s where you see him being extremely effective in taking the shots down the field and finding an open receiver. So, that’s number one. Then again, we’ve just got to try to mix things up on him a little bit to give him something to think about and figure out where he needs to go with the ball.”

There weren’t a lot of areas where Love struggled this year. He was dynamite on play action though.

Pro Football Focus gave Love the 10th-highest grade overall on play action throws this season. He completed 72.4 percent of his play action passes, averaged 9.7 yards per attempt, and tossed 11 touchdowns against just three interceptions.

Those numbers are stellar, especially up against his non-play action stats. On straight dropbacks Love’s completion rate dips to 61.9 percent, his YPA plummets to 6.6, and he posted 24 TDs with 8 INTs.

Stopping the run isn’t enough to make play action ineffective. Packers running back Aaron Jones is an extremely talented player who the 49ers will need to account for regardless of how productive Green Bay has been on the ground. A good RB forces defenses to respect the play fake, which moves defenders out of throwing lanes and allows for easier completions.

Wilks’ point about making the Packers one-dimensional is the key, but they have to do that via game script. Winning on first down and getting an early lead are two quick ways to push Green Bay into obvious passing situations where play action becomes a less effective means of bending defenses to an offensive play caller’s will.

This, of course, will be the 49ers’ plan. Given how Love is playing though it may not matter. He’s been excellent in virtually any situation over the last half of the season. Pushing Green Bay into a one-dimensional version of its offense would be a good start though, and then the 49ers’ defensive success may just come down to whether they can win individual reps.

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Packers vs. 49ers playoff preview: Who has the edge at QB in divisional round?

The Packers will face the 49ers on Saturday in the NFC Divisional Round. Who has the edge at quarterback between Jordan Love and Brock Purdy?

The Green Bay Packers (10-8) are headed back on the road to play the San Francisco 49ers (12-5) in the NFC Divisional Round on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium. This will be the first ever matchup between a No. 1 seed and a No. 7 seed, and the Packers are more than a touchdown underdog at most sportsbooks.

Football is a complicated game, but finding the reasons for winning individual matchups between teams each week is often a straightforward exercise. What wins games? Excellent quarterback play, winning the line of scrimmage, taking care of the football and taking it away, controlling the important situations and overcoming or taking advantage of the injury situation.

So, who has the edge at quarterback entering Saturday’s showdown?

Let’s take a look at the important numbers:

Jordan Love Brock Purdy
Completion % 64.2 (20th) 69.4 (4th)
YPA 7.2 (14th) 9.6 (1st)
TD passes 32 (2nd) 31 (3rd)
Total TDs 36 (4th) 33 (5th)
Passer rating 96.1 (11th) 113.0 (1st)
Success rate 47.6 (9th) 54.7% (1st)
EPA/play 0.156 (5th) 0.338 (1st)
DVOA 19.0 (6th) 42.5 (1st)
QBR 62.0 (9th) 72.7 (1st)
PFF grade 83.0 (11th) 88.4 (4th)
Big-time throws 34 (5th) 27 (10th)
Turnover worthy plays 17 (11th) 18 (13th)
Sack% 4.9 (5th) 5.9 (11th)
PFF grade under pressure 62.6 (6th) 62.8 (8th)
Completions, passes thrown 20+ yards 32 (3rd) 30 (6th)
Games, multiple TDs, 0 INTs 9 (1st) 8 (2nd)
Games, passer rating over 100.0 10 (2nd) 10 (2nd)

Purdy was the most efficient quarterback in football in 2023. He led the NFL in yards per attempt, passer rating, EPA/play and success rate. When it comes to quarterback stats, it’s tough to beat that quartet. Purdy mixed playing in a deadly scheme with all-star weapons to create a fantastic second year throwing the football in San Francisco.

But what did last week teach us? The “best” quarterback doesn’t just automatically beat the hottest quarterback, and there’s little doubt who the hottest quarterback in football is. The Packers have been playing must-win games for a month and Love has been lights out, culminating with a historic playoff debut last Sunday in Dallas. He has 21 touchdown passes and one interception in the last nine games. When a quarterback is playing as well as Love, a team has a chance to win every single week.

Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are facing off on the AFC side but Love-Purdy might end up being the best quarterback matchup of the weekend, at least statistically speaking. Both young passers are operating their respective schemes at high levels while distributing the ball to talented groups of pass-catchers. Both will ruthlessly attack the middle of the field. Both can make plays off-schedule and with their legs. And both can hit the intermediate to deep shots. They are both succeeding within and elevating the scheme.

The dividing line for Saturday? Probably avoiding interceptions. The 49ers were 2-4 when Purdy threw an interception this season, including an 0-3 mark when he threw two or more. The Packers were 1-7 when Love threw an interception but 9-2 when he didn’t. The 49ers defense led the NFL in picks during the regular season, but the Packers got two huge interceptions in their upset in Dallas.

It’s fair to call the quarterback matchup a draw. Purdy is the ultimate point guard. Love is on fire and can hit from anywhere. This is something like Steve Nash vs. Stephen Curry.

Here’s Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire on the Love vs. Purdy matchup:

Let’s start with this – if the Packers are in line with Devonte Wyatt’s proclamation that “When D-linemen just get pressure into [Purdy], he’s always throwing off or it’s behind them or it’s overthrown or short … when you get pressure on him, it’s a guarantee we’ll get a turnover,” it will be an exceedingly long day for Joe Barry’s defense. Purdy this season under pressure has completed 87 of 156 passes for 1,278 yards, 11 touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 90.2. And when blitzed this season, he’s completed 117 of 172 passes for 1,762 yards, 15 touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 123.3. Talk about “Mr. Irrelevant” all you want, but Purdy is for real, and he’s become one of the best distillers of the Kyle Shanahan offense that Shanahan’s ever had.

Two things stand out when looking at Purdy’s skill set, and both are rare for young quarterbacks. First, he is exceptional at deciphering disguise and late movement in coverage – there isn’t a lot you’re going to fool him with. And he’s a tremendous downfield anticipation thrower. The 49ers run their passing game vertically inside the numbers to a large degree, and there have been so many times this season when Purdy will throw the ball on a dig or an in-cut or a post before the receiver makes his cut, and it’s right on the money. The Packers have improved a lot over the last three weeks in their overall pass defense, but if they underestimate Purdy in any way, that would be a major mistake.

As for Jordan Love, he continues to rip it up. The Cowboys switched their usual approach against Love, playing much more man coverage than they had throughout most of the season. Not that it mattered. The 49ers don’t have a specific coverage type – they’re 50/50 single-high and two-high, with a lot of Cover-4 and Cover-6, with Cover-3 as their primary single-high concept. More zone than man, but against Cover-4 and Cover-6 this season, Love has thrown three touchdowns and three interceptions, with a passer rating of 89.0. Now, you do have to look at the second half of the season with Love, because he really starting hitting those extra gears around Week 9, and Love has thrown all three of his touchdowns, and none of his interceptions, since then against those two coverages.

Both of these teams use a ton of heavy personnel and pre-snap motion to create explosive plays both in the run and pass game, and given how the Love has done in the second half of the season, combined with the improvements in the run game and the defense over the last few weeks, this could be a closer matchup than a lot of people expect.

Unlike last week, the Packers have no experience gap to overcome at the quarterback position. Purdy has thrown 63 career passes in the postseason. Love aced his playoff debut. Execution in the big moments and protecting the football will almost certainly decide the quarterback matchup in the NFC Divisional Round on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium.