In this offseason series, Athlon Sports' Doug Farrar asks the One Big Question for every NFL team that will become readily apparent when the season does begin, and the lights are at their brightest. We continue with the Green Bay Packers, who have been wildly successful in the regular season under head coach Matt LaFeur, but Super Bowls have not come calling. Quarterback Jordan Love could make all the difference as he enters his third season as a starter, especially if he has a clean bill of health.
While most franchises try desperately to engineer quarterback succession plans over time with varied degrees of success, the Green Bay Packers have had no such issues over the last four decades. Brett Favre became the man for the team in the early 1990s, gave way to Aaron Rodgers in 2008, and Rodgers gave way to Jordan Love in 2023.
It's been an embarrassment of riches at the game's most important position, but while there are no questions regarding Favre's and Rodgers' NFL bonafides, it feels as if we're still waiting for the best of Love to come out on the field. In 2023, his first season as the starter, Love completed 409 passes in 634 attempts for 4,624 yards, 37 touchdowns, 13 interceptions, and a passer rating of 97.1.
Love was especially ridiculous in the second half of that season — from Week 11 through the Packers' 34-21 divisional-round loss to the San Francisco 49ers, it could credibly be argued that there wasn't a more effective quarterback in the league. In that time he completed 233 of 334 passes for 2,616 yards, a league-high 23 touchdowns, just three interceptions, and a league-best passer rating of 112.2.
So, a lot was expected coming into the 2024 season, and it didn't quite happen. In the season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, a 34-29 loss in São Paulo, Brazil, Love suffered an MCL sprain in the final minute that cost him the next two games. He also dealt with knee and elbow injuries as the season progressed, and overall, things just weren't the same. Overall, Love completed 288 of 458 passes for 3,601 yards, 25 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, and a passer rating of 92.7.
Everything was down — not to the point where Love looked like a failure by any means, but the guy we saw in the second half of the 2023 season wasn't there nearly as much as we may have imagined.
Love's 2024 season ended as it had began — with a disappointing loss to the eventual Super Bowl champions. In a 22-10 wild-card blowout at the hands of the Eagles, Love completed 20 of 33 passes for 212 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 41.5. Not exactly the optimal time for Love to have one of the worst games of his career. Injuries depleted the Packers' receiver corps and offensive line as well, but when Love was getting postgame questions about both all the injury issues affecting his mobility and accuracy... well, that tells you how the season ended.
Now, all the team can do is to look forward. The good news is that the Packers did something they very rarely do in the draft; they selected a receiver in the first round.
Texas' Matthew Golden has all the attributes to be a true No. 1 target, and for a team that tended to insist that it didn't need that guy as long as Nos. 2-4 were in place, this was a necessary change in paradigm. When you're 5-foot-11, 191 pounds, you run a 4.29-second 40-yard dash with a 1.49-second 10-yard split, and you beat defenses to death with the deep ball when Quinn Ewers is your primary quarterback... its not hard to see why Golden was the man to break the thought process.
"He's so big, so powerful, so explosive, and guys (trying to make a tackle) just have a tendency to bounce off of him," Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said. "I think he's just scratching the surface of the playmaker he can become.
"You can never have enough weapons around the quarterback. Our guys have got to embrace that competition, and if they attack it the right way, I think collectively, we'll continue to improve."
They'll have to. Right now, receiver Christian Watson is still recovering from the torn ACL he suffered in January. Jayden Reed became more of a credible threat in his second NFL season, and beyond that, there are a lot of question marks. If Golden, Reed, Watson, Romeo Doubs, Dontayvion Wicks, free-agent addition Mecole Hardman, tight end Tucker Kraft, and third-round pick Savion Williams from TCU can all bring their best, that's a spicy meatball for any defense to deal with.
Because even in a "down" season, Love can still make plays that are the equal of any NFL quarterback.
"You've got to be able to go out there and execute and take advantage of every play," Love said in the week before that postseason disaster. "You can't really have mess-ups and mistakes. There's no do-overs in the playoffs. I think this group understands that, and obviously we got some reps at that last year, but we've got to go out there and play our best ball."
If Love can rebound, and his targets are in check, it will obviously help in an NFC North that looks to be the NFL's most competitive division once again. Last season's 11-6 mark for the Packers put them third in the division behind the 15-2 Detroit Lions and the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings, and the 5-12 Chicago Bears won't be the relative pushover they once were.
It's all about Jordan Love's consistency and improvement in 2025, and if that goes well, the Packers have a legitimate shot at their first Super Bowl berth since the end of the 2010 season. Without it, this team could get lost in a big hurry.