Jordan Love received $30.5 million as remarkable surge, leads Packers to big upset over ChiefsWhen the Green Bay Packers were 2-5, general manager Brian Gutekunst said Jordan Love had a “very important 10 games” coming up to finish the season.
It was the kind of thing a GM says because he has to. Even if he still believed in Love, very few others did at that point.
It’s not like Love was playing well and the Packers were losing. He was a big part of the Packers’ terrible record. Maybe the biggest part.
When is the last time a quarterback entirely changed the narrative about his future in about a month?
Love has come alive and so have the Packers. The Packers got a huge upset, knocking off the Kansas City Chiefs 27-19 on Sunday night.
The Packers held on in a wild final two minutes with the Chiefs trying to score and tie the game.Love continued his fascinating hot streak, throwing three touchdowns and looking like a totally different player than we saw the first two months of the season.
The Packers are 6-6, have a very soft upcoming schedule with no teams over .500 remaining and unless there’s another 180 coming in their season, they’re likely going to the playoffs in the NFC.
It’s a remarkable turnaround for the team, led by the quarterback who was struggling badly over the first two months of the season to replace Aaron Rodgers.
Of course there are other factors in Love’s sudden improvement. The offensive line has been way better.
Christian Watson got healthy and has been making plays, which made it frustrating to see him leave Sunday night’s game in the fourth quarter with what appeared to be a hamstring injury.
The Packers’ defense did a good job against the Chiefs and has looked improved.
But the most important factor in a quarterback-centric league is Love, who has gone from maybe having a foot out of the door to completely turning around his season, and the Packers’ season too.
If there was one play to epitomize the change in Love and the Packers, it came on fourth-and-1 in the third quarter.
First of all, a month ago Packers head coach Matt LaFleur might not have had the confidence to go for it. But he did Sunday.
Green Bay‘s play was defended well, so Love threw one up off his back foot. And it dropped right into Romeo Doubs’ lap for a 33-yard gain.
The Packers scored on Watson’s second touchdown shortly after. It was a great play by a quarterback who hadn’t made many big plays through seven games.
Love made plenty of big throws on Sunday night. The Chiefs’ defense is clearly the best of the Patrick Mahomes era and one of the best in the NFL, yet Love was finding receivers all over the field.
He played with a confidence he didn’t have during the 2-5 start.
If you watched Love’s first game against the Detroit Lions this season, or his three-interception fiasco against the Las Vegas Raiders, or when he and the Packers put up 17 points in a loss to the Denver Broncos or 10 points in a loss to the Minnesota Vikings, you would not have predicted Love emerging as an exciting potential cornerstone weeks before Christmas.
That’s why the Packers let it be known he still had 10 games to make an impression. It took him only five.