It's Hard To Tell Who Sucks More, Jordan Love or Matt LaFleur, But Either Way It Ain't Good For Green Bay
There were three ways this Packers season was going to go unfold in their first year without Aaron Rodgers.
Option A: Love takes in all the knowledge that 12 fed him and looks like the guy the front office trusted this franchise with. Everyone is happy.
Option B: The Packers are kinda blah. Love looks uncertain, with occasional flashes of talent, but things never really develop into consistent success. You end the year not knowing what to do with him.
Option C: Utter disaster. Love looks overmatched, LaFleur proves he was a product of Rodgers, and the losses pile up one after another. Fans' energy and thought quickly shifts to their decision of which weapon they will use during their coup of the front office.
Well six games in we're somewhere between B and C, and certainly trending towards C.
The Packers started the 2023-2024 season 2-1 and with hope. Looking back now, those two wins came against the Bears and a Saints team that was without Derek Carr for the entire 2nd half. A month later they've lost three games in a row and find themselves 2-4 with a lot of sadness, stress, and despair.
Jordan Love has essentially regressed every week. His deep ball is brutal to watch and the decision making late in games is jarring. Today's terrible decision saw him chuck it deep on 3rd and long with the game hanging in the balance. There was nothing there and the ball was easily picked.
It resembled the same kinda decision at the end of the Vegas game.
Just no need to attempt either throw. Today Dillon was open as the checkdown with a ton of room to work with. Who knows, with the way he was running maybe he gets the full 20. With the Vegas one you have 51 seconds to work with. Both infuriating interceptions to seal their fate.
Something that's also not great? The Packers two touchdowns today shouldn't have been touchdowns. This one to Romeo Doubs probably should've bee ruled an interception. It's terribly under-thrown as well, which most if not all of Love's deep balls are. This is a 20 yard throw so it doesn't really classify as a deep ball, but we were told he had this great arm strength and it's been totally m.i.a. so far.
This one to Jayden Reed, well it was wasn't intended for Jayden Reed.
Awesome luck, troubling execution.
While Love isn't inspiring much confidence at all, I've got to ask what the fuck is Matt LaFleur doing?
Here's the Packers offensive output in the first half over their last four games.
Saints: 0
Lions: 3
Raiders: 3
Broncos: 0
Keep in mind the Packers had extra time to prepare for Vegas coming off TNF. With Denver today they were coming out of a bye. Coming out that flat consistently is fucking insane. With Rodgers out of the picture it was assumed this would be LaFleur's time to shine as a play-caller. Instead we're being exposed to an absolute fraud.
Jordan Love looks like a true rookie QB who was playing against Mountain West conference opponents last year. This is the guy who Rodgers took under his wing and groomed? We were led astray? Obviously you can't simulate NFL game play in practice, but I was expecting a much more finished product. Instead I'm looking at the 2024 NFL Draft and what pick Green Bay is going to have. As things currently stand they'll be picking seventh and that position might only continue to get better if this continues. At the bare minimum just stop the conservative play calling early on. Let Love rip it and if he sucks then he sucks. At least you learn that for sure and feel better about moving on. What do you have to lose at this point?
I really don't wanna get ahead of myself, but coming off a bye against this bad of a team to look like this? Just can't fucking happen. You're simply a bad team yourself when you look like they did. That's an incredibly deflating performance. If this ship keeps sinking then Gute and MLF need to be out on the streets. This was their gamble. They chose to not improve Super Bowl contending teams without Rodgers and instead looked to the future with Love. It was wrong when they did it and it's even more wrong now. Coming into this year it was right to move on from Rodgers given how they looked, the relationship, and the Love contract situation. That doesn't mean the original move of trading up to draft him won't go down as one of the worst mistakes a front office has ever made.
Fun times!