The Jordan Love era will officially begin for the Green Bay Packers during the 2023 season.
After waiting behind Aaron Rodgers for three seasons, the 2020 first-round pick is stepping into the spotlight and taking over at quarterback — the game’s most difficult position — for one of the NFL’s iconic franchises.
What are reasonable expectations for Love as a first-year starter in 2023? The staff at Packers Wire attempted to anticipate what’s ahead for Love and the Packers this season:
Zach Kruse
Setting reasonable expectations for Jordan Love requires acknowledging two realities: First, Love is a first-round pick who sat for three years behind a future Hall of Famer, and he is now going into his fourth year in the Matt LaFleur offense. Talent and know-how in the scheme are not issues. But the other reality is that Love has also started just one game and thrown only 83 career passes in regular season games, and he’ll have an extremely young cast around him as a first-year starter for a team in transition. Given both factors, I think it’s reasonable to expect Love to operate the offense and consistently make good decisions with the ball while also leaving room for the chaos and unavoidable mistakes that come with inexperience, both at the quarterback position and the skill positions. The main requirements for Love in 2023 are setting a starter’s level of baseline play, growing throughout the season and learning how to win, even if it’s learning the hard way. While he’s getting a two-year audition as the Packers quarterback, this season will be his most important evaluation. Aaron Rodgers left no doubt who was the future at quarterback despite creating a 6-10 season in 2008. Love, in a quarterback-friendly offense he should know inside and out, will have every opportunity to do the same as a first-year starter in 2023. The Packers will hope the running back duo of Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, an elite pass-blocking offensive line and a defense full of veterans and first-round picks will help Love through the hard times of his first season.
Paul Bretl
Progress. There are going to be ups and downs throughout the year — Jordan Love is a first-time starter after all. But what we need to see from Love is progression from week to week. For the most part, the same mistakes he’s making in Week 2 hopefully won’t be happening in Week 7, or at least not as often depending on what the issue is. As Matt LaFleur said during the NFL Owners’ Meetings, patience will be required, and that’s absolutely true. But while Love is in his first season as a starter, it’s his fourth in the NFL and in LaFleur’s system. The learning curve should be shorter, which is one potential benefit of giving a young player that time to develop. His decision making, throwing on the run, overall accuracy and more, will all hopefully progress as he gets more comfortable being the guy and gets more snaps as the season goes on. This doesn’t necessarily mean that wins will follow either, and that’s okay, Aaron Rodgers went 6-10 in his first season as a starter, but he improved throughout the year.
Brandon Carwile
I think Jordan Love passing the eye test should carry more weight than any expectations on what his numbers might be. The expectation should be a quarterback entering his fourth season in the offense with a firm grasp on how to operate it efficiently. Obviously, it won’t look great at times, but that is to be expected with a first-year starter surrounded by so many young pass catchers. There may be some drops and chemistry issues, but hopefully Love is making the correct read/throw more times than not. Of course, mistakes are going to happen, but it will be important for Love to learn from those mistakes early on so they aren’t happening as the year progresses. I also think it is reasonable to expect Love to flash his first-round talent. He has a good arm and should be able to make some eye-catching throws. We have seen glimpses of this during past preseasons and in last year’s relief duty against the Philadelphia Eagles, but a full season at the helm should afford him plenty of opportunities to show what he is capable of. By the end of 2023, hopefully the expectation for Love goes from “perhaps our long-term starter” to “we know this is our guy” moving forward.
Story originally appeared on Packers Wire