By just about any measure of value, Friday night’s preseason game against the New Orleans Saints was the best individual performance of Jordan Love’s three-year NFL career. The Green Bay Packers quarterback played decisively from the pocket, did not force the football and either created big plays or presented opportunities for big plays for his pass-catchers.
The box score just doesn’t tell the story. Love finished the contest completing 12 of 24 passes for 113 yards, one touchdown and a passer rating of 77.3. Nothing particularly notable about that stat line. But Love played well beyond the traditional numbers.
Some important things to know, mostly via Pro Football Focus:
– Love earned an elite grade and had three “big-time throws” from clean pockets. While grades under pressure fluctuate for even the best quarterbacks (see: Aaron Rodgers), the best in the game are dominant when the defense is clean (see: Aaron Rodgers). And Love was on Friday night.
– Love completed only 1-of-3 passes thrown over 20 yards, but the two incompletions should have been completed. Romeo Doubs couldn’t make a spinning catch on first down, negating a play of 30 or more yards on third down in the first half, and Samori Toure’s drop wiped out what could have been a play of 40 or more yards. Love was excellent throwing down the field (note: all four of Love’s big-time throws this preseason have been thrown 20+ yards in the air).
– In the play-action pass game, Love completed 4-of-6 passes for 52 yards. Again, Toure’s drop hurt the numbers. Love should have been 5-of-6 for somewhere around 100 yards. His 22-yard completion to Juwann Winfree was a perfectly timed and perfectly placed throw off play-action. He did miss Josiah Deguara on a staple boot action play down near the red zone in the first half, but Love looked calm and played in rhythm off run action, an important facet of playing in Matt LaFleur’s system.
– Love completed both passes – one a third-down conversion to Winfree, the other a touchdown pass to Romeo Doubs – against the blitz. Remember how poorly he played against extra blitzers in Kansas City last year? This was a step in the right direction.
– Four of Love’s 12 incompletions were the result of drops, and that’s probably a conservative grading of the drops. Receivers had legitimate chances to catch 5-6 other passes and couldn’t finish. His adjusted completion percentage (accounting for the drops) was almost 67 percent.
– Overall, eight passes thrown by Love have been dropped this preseason. The narrative around his two games would be so much different if receivers were making more plays for him.
– Love’s accuracy waned a little bit in the intermediate areas. The performance was strong overall but I’d bet there are a few throws he’d like to have back in terms of placement.
– Over 53 dropbacks, Love has just one “turnover worthy” play. He didn’t have a single one on Friday night. Love threw confidently and accurately into tight windows.
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