@fightphoe93 posted:

If you put Love down in Miami throwing to Hill and Waddle no doubt he’d look better.  That said, I haven’t seen anything that screams out “This guy can lead us to a Super Bowl Championship”.  

I do like the fact that he’s even keeled and poised.  Those traits plus a decent arm will keep him in the league for awhile.  But he is just so inconsistent from down to down, I just think he’s more of a guy that is backup level and spot starter as opposed to long term starter.  He still shows a lot of rawness for a guy in his 4th year.  

It’s fair to say Love has less help around him than probably 80% of the league or more.  That said, at some point you have to make the best of what you’re working with and I don’t feel he’s done that.  His instincts as a QB just look very ordinary and that may limit what he can become in another couple years when he reaches his prime NFL years.

To be honest, I think if you gave him the 2008 roster with 8 year vet WR (Driver), 4 year vet WR (Jennings), 3 year vet WR (Jones) and 2 promising rookies in Nelson and Finley + 2 veteran booked Tackles and a veteran 1,000 yrd rusher (Grant) then he probably looks A LOT better. He’s flashed some really good things, but right now I don’t think he has any faith his guys are where they’re supposed to be and if they are that they will catch it. Rodgers looked exactly the same last year except he had the veteran savvy to not fall into some young QB traps that Love is falling into. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to see growing pains from a young QB, almost all of Love’s warts are things that get cleaned up with experience. The offense isn’t stalling because of his issues, it’s 7-9 other guys on offense who can’t or don’t do their job on any given play.

I don't think Love is THE problem either. What's worrisome is that after the second drive in this game, he looked like his confidence was shot. He's a flatliner as far as expressiveness in a game, but it's his demeanor. He's playing mechanical, like he knows whatever can go wrong will go wrong, so he's trying to be so careful and do so much that he's too paralyzed to let the game come to him. The short throws when going long compared to earlier this year when he was overthrowing those guys. The longer time it takes him to make decisions like he wants to be sure he makes a perfect choice every time. I wouldn't mind if they put Clifford in to just give Love a breather. Yes, there's danger in that if Clifford plays well, Love may never recover -- but then a determination is made. If Clifford sucks, then Love can see that it's not all on him.

@fightphoe93 posted:

If you put Love down in Miami throwing to Hill and Waddle no doubt he’d look better. That said, I haven’t seen anything that screams out “This guy can lead us to a Super Bowl Championship”.  

I respect your opinion, but you've come to this conclusion after a grand total of seven career games as QB1 with all poor play around him (line, WRs, no TE, poor running game, weird play calling, and constant penalties)??? Seven career games as QB1???

@PackLandVA posted:

So let me get this straight:

-many/most think the O-Line has been piss poor run blocking and possibly worse pass blocking;

-many/most think the young, inexperienced receiving corp has too many drops, and is poor at working through contested passes/catches;

-many/most think AJ is not the answer at RB in short-yardage situations, or really any time the ball is handed to him by the QB;

-Aaron Jones missed 4 games, and when he came back, the playcalling doesn't seem to involve him more than about a dozen or so plays;

-Many/most think that LaFleur and Stenavich call a shitty game, especially in the first half of games.

With that said, Jordan Love is the problem? After 7 starts in his career as QB1? And Sean Clifford should get a shot?  Really? Comical that so many on this board laugh at the "whiner" Viking and Bears fans year after year.

All the above AND love doesn’t look the part.  Accuracy problems and consistently late.  

This is an all around horrible team.  I’m not pinning it all on Love, but I a, saying he is not a franchise QB.   I don’t want Clifford yet though.  There is no point in that, we can check him out next year or really late in this year.

@BrainDed posted:

I’m not pinning it all on Love, but I a, saying he is not a franchise QB.  

I don't know if he is or not, but I give it a bit more time than 7 games. 

If the team was pretty certain Love was “the guy” they wouldn’t have redone his contract the way they did.  It allows them to pull the plug after next year without incurring much dead cap and his contract this year and next year is pretty modest.

At 2-5, with Carolina winning today the Packers actually have a real shot at a top 3-4 pick.  They have to play Carolina, the Rams and Chargers and Giants, and Chicago again and Oakland and Denver already have the head to head.   Catching AZ may be tough but at this rate this might be a 4 win team.

@Tschmack posted:

If the team was pretty certain Love was “the guy” they wouldn’t have redone his contract the way they did.  It allows them to pull the plug after next year without incurring much dead cap and his contract this year and next year is pretty modest.

At 2-5, with Carolina winning today the Packers actually have a real shot at a top 3-4 pick.  They have to play Carolina yet and Chicago again and Oakland and Denver already have the head to head.

Just a heads up, there is NO HEAD TO HEAD tiebreaker when it comes to the  draft.

Time for Packer fans to get used to the phrase "STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE" or "SOS."

Fortunately, the Pack has played (and will continue to play) such a shitty schedule this season that they should end up winning most SOS tiebreakers.

Good times in Green Bay.

It's clearly not all on Love...  but he's just not that guy.  At all.  I am nowhere near qualified to be a NFL GM but I'd be looking for a QB1 in next years draft with our top pick.  That, or a punter.  

@PackLandVA posted:

I don't know if he is or not, but I give it a bit more time than 7 games.

I’m not asking for Clifford yet because we are so invested in this guy we need to give him every opportunity to prove it.  Point being, I want him to play and improve, I just don’t think it will happen.

Part of it is his DNA and part of it is Gute building a shit roster around him.    Maybe he was hoping that after sitting for several years he wouldn’t play like a 1st year rookie?   Well, he is and worse.   There are other 1st year rookie QBs playing much better than he is.

That’s it - win the race for the bottom!  

@Tschmack posted:

If the team was pretty certain Love was “the guy” they wouldn’t have redone his contract the way they did.  It allows them to pull the plug after next year without incurring much dead cap and his contract this year and next year is pretty modest.

They actually redid his contract because they weren't sure he was the guy and it gave them an out. Had they exercised his 5th year option it would have cost them more money. By giving him the one year extension they could see how he played and make a decision while holding his rights for another year. I'm not sure how not exercising the 5th year option will work out for the Packers, a lot depends on what they do after the season, but the extension is turning out to be a good deal for Love instead of this being his contract year.

I don't expect Love to carry the team, just plant his feet and fire the ball to where it belongs according to the play design more times than not. If he met that base level I wouldn't care what happens after the ball is in the air.

There's a reason we're not throwing slants or WR quick screens, or the TE up the seam, and it's Love. MLF knows it, Gute knows it, Davante knew it, the wild  contract extension instead of trading 12 admitted to it, the forced discount imposed on 10 admitted to it, and you can bet most of the players know it. He's a great teammate and never points a finger but that's only going to go so far.

If there were a top 5 worst throws of the week he would have made the list more weeks than not and maybe all of them. Accuracy is a crucial part of playing the position. I don't mean to disparage his off-season coach, but Love should have had an NFL level offseason program to fix his mechanics instead of staying loyal to a childhood mentor. There's levels to professional preparation and Love has not met them.

He had three years to get ready for the job and he's not showing near enough improvement. I really don't care about the weapons complaints. He's worked with 87 for years now.  They should know the ins and outs of each other's abilities. They should be able to design more plays around that connection than they have, but they can't and it's been against some of the worst defenses in the league.

Throw away everything else wrong with the offense, 10 is incapable of consistently putting the ball in locations where basic plays can be called.

Against Chicago he was in rhythm and on time.   I was ecstatic with what I saw as I didn’t expect it.   Since then it’s been a steady decline.   He’s not processing fast enough and it leads to late throws.   He’s also horribly inaccurate since then.     There were a couple WTF throws today that you shouldn’t ever see from an NFL qb.  

Not my words.

In another all-around embarrassing performance the Packers lost their fourth straight game, their second straight home game to a divisional opponent and dropped to 2-5 on the season.

This loss was to the Minnesota Vikings, 24-10, as the offense again started slowly and ended poorly while the defense was only slightly better when it mattered.

It’s the offense, however, that reminded long-time fans of the days of Forrest Gregg and Randy Wright. The offense went without a first-half touchdown again. And didn’t even have a first down until late in the second quarter. They would not have scored at all, except they got two chances at the end of half for a easy field goal when Minnesota jumped offsides on a 35-yard attempt that hit the upright.

Down 24-3 after the Vikings scored touchdowns on two consecutive pass plays in the third quarter, the Packers closed to 24-10 at the end of the third.

But after a blocked field goal by rookie Karl Brooks and a nice return by Jonathan Owens the Packers started at the Vikings 39, but failed to score. A dropped pass, one of six on the day, prevented a first-and-goal.

A Vikings fumble on their next possession gave the Packers the ball at the Minnesota 15 and again they did not score.

Yup, starting to look a lot like Gregg and Wright.

Offensive Hero: This will bother some, but Jordan Love was better than the rest of his teammates. Add in the six drops and his completion rate is better than his 24-for-41 and his yards increase from 229. His one interception was a completion that Jayden Reed let the safety rip out of his hands. Love also led the team in rushing, which should never happen.

Offensive Zero: The entire group of receivers. Drops, penalties, bad routes, not winning contested balls, this group was as bad as it is young.

Defensive Hero: Preston Smith, whose name may come up around Tuesday’s trade deadline, had two sacks and four quarterback hits.

Defensive Zero: If cornerback Jaire Alexander’s back is as bad as it appeared to be Sunday he should just sit out. He’s not helping. Vikings rookie Jordan Addison had his way with Alexander most of the game.

Play of the Game: Rookie Karl Brooks blocked Joseph’s 44-yard attempt. Owens caught it mid air and returned it 23 yards.

Turning Point: On the Packers second possession with the game scoreless, Aaron Jones and Luke Musgrave dropped passes on consecutive plays. It was a sign of things to come.

This and That: The Packers were called for 11 penalties, actually 13 but two were declined, for 99 yards. …They were also 5-for-14 on third down, 1-for-4 on fourth down and 1-for-4 in the red zone. …Yosh Nijman finally replaced Rasheed Walker at left tackle for pat of the game. But Walker was back at the end and getting called for his second penalty of the game when Nijman went out with an injury. ...

Ted Lasso is available.

What stood out to me in today's game was Love rarely hits a moving target.
I'm guessing on about 90% of his completions downfield, the receiver is standing flat-footed, and typically doesn't allow for YAC.
On screen passes, either the receiver has to make some adjustment to the ball or has to wait for it to arrive; either way there's no momentum to the play. so it's essentially a flat-footed reception.

I can't say if this is on Love, the WRs, or if it's some combination of them, but it's very unnatural looking.

@Pakrz posted:

It's clearly not all on Love...  but he's just not that guy.  At all.  I am nowhere near qualified to be a NFL GM but I'd be looking for a QB1 in next years draft with our top pick.  That, or a punter.  

You and Mike Sherman.

Love may not be the answer, or guy, but with the hot mess around him and MiLF not helping, we don't know.

Right now, LaFleur's game plans are the embodiment of insanity.

@Timmy! posted:

On screen passes, either the receiver has to make some adjustment to the ball or has to wait for it to arrive; either way there's no momentum to the play. so it's essentially a flat-footed reception.

Love is going to get Jones or someone else killed with one of those lollipops he puts in the air on screens and other short passes to the flats.

@H5 posted:

Love may not be the answer, or guy, but with the hot mess around him and MiLF not helping, we don't know.

Right now, LaFleur's game plans are the embodiment of insanity.

Based on LaFleur's PC body language and his surprising candor, I don't think we're seeing hardly any of his game plans TBH. I don't think they get a chance with all the mistakes. They're in desperation mode all he time. Watching JT O'Sullivan's breakdowns are so embarrassing, as a fan, because you don't notice the little things happening on any given play, but it's painfully obvious that our WR and TE can't or don't know WTF to do on almost any play and our OL is either losing their 1on1's or getting dumb penalties. JTO shows you WR's clearly running wrong routes, making the wrong adjustments, sometimes just stopping routes, missing blocks, easy drops, etc. I mean these guys are either dumb as shit or their coaches just have no clue how to teach or both. Watson is probably the biggest problem, on any given play he's rarely where he's meant to be. Doubs seems to be usually right. Musgrave is often a mess. Reed is hit or miss, same for Wicks but they are rookies and that deserves some slack. They're basically babies in NFL terms, none of them should be key starters, they should all be depth behind established veterans.

Love is clearly making some rookie/early career starter mistakes and people will need to be patient with him, but he's flashed enough to make me think he's got what it takes to be a franchise QB (I know that's an unpopular opinion right now). I think he's a better QB than Hurts, but Hurts has an elite cast around him. I think on the list of problems on offense he's probably the 10th biggest problem, Aaron Jones being the 11th I would say. 

But at least Watson is fast.You can't teach speed.

Another point, GD, is they practice the game plan/scripted plays with continuous piss-poor results. MiLF needs to change up his process. Is the O crapping the bed early because the D throws something at these young guys and they don't recognize it and know how to react/adjust?

Is it just me or do we need to see more, a lot fucking more before we can say Love is better than Hurts.

JHC

Watson is never going to be what the Packers expected. At 6'4 he's supposed to go up an get those balls he's losing out to on 5'11 CBs. He's MVS at best.

I'm starting to think the same thing on Musgrave. Watson got a PI for blocking before the pass was caught but the timing was way off on that play. The pass was by Musgrave as he turned around and quite possibly he was the one at fault.

@Grave Digger posted:

Based on LaFleur's PC body language and his surprising candor, I don't think we're seeing hardly any of his game plans TBH. I don't think they get a chance with all the mistakes. They're in desperation mode all he time. Watching JT O'Sullivan's breakdowns are so embarrassing, as a fan, because you don't notice the little things happening on any given play, but it's painfully obvious that our WR and TE can't or don't know WTF to do on almost any play and our OL is either losing their 1on1's or getting dumb penalties. JTO shows you WR's clearly running wrong routes, making the wrong adjustments, sometimes just stopping routes, missing blocks, easy drops, etc. I mean these guys are either dumb as shit or their coaches just have no clue how to teach or both. Watson is probably the biggest problem, on any given play he's rarely where he's meant to be. Doubs seems to be usually right. Musgrave is often a mess. Reed is hit or miss, same for Wicks but they are rookies and that deserves some slack. They're basically babies in NFL terms, none of them should be key starters, they should all be depth behind established veterans.

Love is clearly making some rookie/early career starter mistakes and people will need to be patient with him, but he's flashed enough to make me think he's got what it takes to be a franchise QB (I know that's an unpopular opinion right now). I think he's a better QB than Hurts, but Hurts has an elite cast around him. I think on the list of problems on offense he's probably the 10th biggest problem, Aaron Jones being the 11th I would say.

Great post Digger.  Patience is something that is kind of lost in today's fandom and even if we as fans aren't patient the team is going to have to be for a little bit to allow them to grow together.

This offense has inexperience everywhere and the lack of veteran leadership on that side of the ball is definitely showing right now.   IMHO the two huge things that are hurting Love and the offense is the lack of a running game and the matador play of the OL. 

Volume UP. It's understandable with this offense being woefully impotent that Love's fundamentals/footwork are also starting to regress. Good breakdown here;

Tape drives me nuts too much pic.twitter.com/Uzq0NEw5jR

— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) October 29, 2023

If you look at Gute’s high draft picks - namely guys like Gary and Love and Watson and Stokes and Savage and Musgrave and Walker and LVN and Wyatt- and even Jaire Alexander - they are all exceptional athletes.  

He hit a HR on Gary and Jaire.  He completely whiffed on Savage and Watson and Stokes have trended the other way.  The jury is still out on Love and Musgrave and Wyatt and Walker and LVN but there’s a reason some of these guys went where they did in the draft.  I wonder if they all have the football IQ to be successful.

When you see guys making mental mistake regularly it does make one question the football IQ. I don't think all of the problems on offense are physical.

@Tschmack posted:

If you look at Gute’s high draft picks - namely guys like Gary and Love and Watson and Stokes and Savage and Musgrave and Walker and LVN and Wyatt- and even Jaire Alexander - they are all exceptional athletes.  

He hit a HR on Gary and Jaire.  He completely whiffed on Savage and Watson and Stokes have trended the other way.  The jury is still out on Love and Musgrave and Wyatt and Walker and LVN but there’s a reason some of these guys went where they did in the draft.  I wonder if they all have the football IQ to be successful.

I have to wonder about the football IQ and if they are struggling to learn.

One other thought I had is with all of the RPO they run in college if that may be a source of struggle for them when they make the leap to the NFL.

The RPO that many teams run in college has very few plays to it and then when they hit the NFL they have this precision offenses to learn and I think the learning curve is huge.  But, on the other hand this is their JOB to learn the NFL offense.     

A big part of learning the offense for a WR is reading the defense and making adjustments on the fly. We hope that comes with experience.

@Pikes Peak posted:

Is it just me or do we need to see more, a lot fucking more before we can say Love is better than Hurts.

JHC

You are correct, Hurts has definitely proven a lot more. I suppose I should have said I think Love COULD be better than Hurts, not that he IS better than Hurts. I think Love is a passer, not a thrower and that's an important distinction. Hurts, Lamar, Murray, etc. are throwers to varying degrees of success. I don't think you ask those guys to play QB, you ask them to run an offense and throw the ball. My observation thus far (for whatever it's worth as just a fan) is that Love can play QB and given a team where everyone is actually doing their job he will execute his job and succeed. I genuinely believe that. I don't think he's special in a Mahomes/Favre/Rodgers way, but I don't think you have to be to win a SB.

I currently have no faith in the existing GM/coaching staff to build the necessary team around such a QB to compete for a ship.

@FLPACKER posted:

What is somewhat concerning about Watson is that he is very bright (he had a higher wonderlic score than Rodgers), but is making mental mistakes. His knowledge of the offense was being lauded in preseason, but now doesn't know routes? What is going on?

https://packerswire.usatoday.c...se-makes-him-unique/

What people seem to forget is the Wonderlic isn’t an intelligence test in the traditional sense, the questions are generally simple, it’s a measure of how quickly one processes information. Watson didn’t have much background in on-field recognition prior to being drafted and it appears he still struggles with it, just like all the basics of the position.

Here's some startling numbers and observations from Andy Herman, especially about the last 25  first half drives. https://247sports.com/nfl/gree...-vikings--219149111/

This is what MLF was referring to in his PGP yesterday.  They never get to the gameplan because they are repeatedly behind the sticks to start posessions.

@Tschmack posted:

If you look at Gute’s high draft picks - namely guys like Gary and Love and Watson and Stokes and Savage and Musgrave and Walker and LVN and Wyatt- and even Jaire Alexander - they are all exceptional athletes.  

He hit a HR on Gary and Jaire.  He completely whiffed on Savage and Watson and Stokes have trended the other way.  The jury is still out on Love and Musgrave and Wyatt and Walker and LVN but there’s a reason some of these guys went where they did in the draft.  I wonder if they all have the football IQ to be successful.

Like I said in another thread, we have become the Raiders.    Everyone is a super athlete, few can actually play football.   Watson is to Gute as Heward Bey is to Davis.   

Enough with the RAS score champs, we need football players.

Herman broke down a few plays and explained some of the issues. On the 20 yard completion on 3rd and 1 at the start of the game. It was negated by an ineligible man downfield and it was actually Doubs' fault for not running the right route on ron/option. It still reverts back to coaching for me.

@BrainDed posted:

Like I said in another thread, we have become the Raiders.    Everyone is a super athlete, few can actually play football.   Watson is to Gute as Heward Bey is to Davis.   

Enough with the RAS score champs, we need football players.

I was listening to Tauscher after the game yesterday. His comment on Watson was interesting. He said that although Watson was fast, he has some of the worst "spatial awareness" of his body positioning that he's ever seen. His example was that when Watson goes to jump instead of his arms and legs being coordinated during that process, his arms and legs just sort of flail around. It's why he doesn't ever seem to win a contested throw or adjust well to expand his catch radius. He's a 6'4" guy that plays more like a 5'9" guy when it comes time to compete for a 50/50 ball.

It was his biggest weakness noted during the draft process and it's not something that's likely to get better.

@packerboi posted:

Volume UP. It's understandable with this offense being woefully impotent that Love's fundamentals/footwork are also starting to regress. Good breakdown here;

Tape drives me nuts too much pic.twitter.com/Uzq0NEw5jR

— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) October 29, 2023

Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.

People raved about 10's improvement and footwork growth under Clements. Great you do it in practice...but when the bullets are real and you're staring down the barrel of a 17 point deficit, those fundamentals are the first to go.

Having had 12 as QB1 for many moons, Packers fans have pretty much been immune to seeing shitty QB play in person. Welcome to most of the rest of the league.