(Photo: David Eulitt, Getty)
We're already five weeks into the NFL season, and the Packers sit at 2-1-1. Just as we all expected, right? It's been a truly bizarre beginning for a team that came out of the gate as hot as any team in football. Then Cleveland happened. Then a 40-40 tie happened. If you watched weeks three and four, you would never believe it's the same team we saw in weeks one and two.
Both the offense and defense have had rough moments against the Browns and Cowboys, respectively, but nothing sticks out more than the special teams. Can you believe it? We're still talking about special teams. It's like something in this organization broke on that fateful afternoon in Seattle 11 years ago. Whether it's the field goal unit's inability to block or the return unit's inability to understand how to return a kick, it's just a new batch of issues each year. At least Rich Bisaccia is the highest-paid special teams coach in football, though.
I had no intention of speaking about the special teams today, but I think I needed that rant for my own mental health, so thanks for coming along for the ride.
Now let's get to what I really want to talk about – Jordan Love.
Win, loss, or tie, Love has been phenomenal this year and is the clear driving factor behind the Packers' mostly successful offense through four games. Only two quarterbacks have a higher EPA/play than Love, and only three have a higher PFF passing grade.
Forget the nerd stuff, though, just watch the tape and you'll see that Love is playing as well as he ever has in the NFL, and yet, it's like Matt Lafleur refuses to take the training wheels off and let his star quarterback truly run this offense.
Let me say this now so I don't have people coming after me. I love Josh Jacobs, and I love an offense that can run the ball effectively. The problem isn't Jacobs. It's the run blocking. Jacobs has averaged 0.45 yards before contact this year. That's 6th-worst in football. The fact that he's even averaged 3.3 yards per carry (career worst) is an impressive feat.
Plain and simple, this team isn't going to win games running the ball 30+ times like they did last year. They need Jordan Love and his wide array of pass catchers to be the catalyst for this offense. At the very least, until the offensive line gets things together.
Back to some nerd stuff, according to SumerSports, the Packers have a 0.289 EPA on pass plays this year versus a 0.002 EPA on run plays. It doesn't take a mathematical wizard to figure out that the pass game is working exponentially better than the run right now.
It would be one thing if Love continued to struggle protecting the football like he did last year, but that simply isn't the case. Love has thrown one interception in four games, albeit a terrible one, but still, he's been much better in that area.
Why would you make the man the highest-paid player in football history if you weren't going to trust him to win games when the team needs him to?
The Packers took big early leads in three of four games this year, and in all of them, they struggled to truly pull away and end the game. In one case allowing the Cowboys to eventually end the game in a tie.
But even in weeks one and two, there were opportunities to put away the Lions and Commanders, but instead, we saw conservative game clock managing type play calls from Lafleur.
It wasn't Jacobs and the run game that gave them those leads; it was Love, so why not trust him to put the game away in the second half?
A perfect example of Lafleur actually doing the right thing can be found in Week Two against the Commanders. After allowing them to get back in the game thanks to a highly conservative 3rd quarter, Lafleur let Love air it out in the 4th, and most importantly, on 1st and goal from the eight-yard line. Instead of calling a predictable 1st down run on a night where Josh Jacobs couldn't find any room, he went with play-action, which resulted in a wide-open Tucker Kraft dagger touchdown.
Unfortunately, those aggressive calls are few and far between. The strength of this team right now is their quarterback and pass catchers, and it's time Lafleur accepted that.
Nobody is saying it should be 80-20 pass, but it also doesn't need to be exactly 50-50 (which it currently is).
It genuinely feels like the moment the Packers take a lead, no matter how small, Lafleur goes into kill-the-clock mode. Forget putting up more points, just get to the end of the game and hold on to that lead for dear life.
I vehemently disagree with this style of coaching. You have to ride with what got you the lead in the first place. If you can trust Love to put up points in the first half, then there's no reason why you can't trust him to do the same at the end of games.
You finally spent a first-round pick on a wide receiver, Christian Watson is on the verge of returning to the field, and you have a tight end who has an argument to be one of, if not the best in football – stop playing scared!
If you don't have the confidence in Love now, with these weapons and with the way he's playing, then you simply never will.