Jordan Love‘s first start has come and gone, and the knee-jerk reactions have started to flow in. It wasn’t pretty for the Green Bay offense. They put up just seven points against a porous Kansas City defense. Love wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but the scheme and the offensive line didn’t do their part either.
The game plan Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo rolled out was simple: Blitz the ever-living hell out of the second-year quarterback making his first start. Love was sacked only once on the afternoon, but he was pressured all game long and had limited time to throw when Green Bay needed to move the sticks. What was most puzzling was that Love seemed to be working with longer-developing plays when the Chiefs brought the zero blitz. It was a recipe that was often doomed from the start.
Packers head coach Matt LaFleur took ownership for the struggles Love endured against the Chiefs. Certainly, it isn’t all on the head coach but, the play-calling left a lot to be desired. LaFleur acknowledged as much.
“We always ask our players to be critical of themselves, and this one falls on me, squarely,” LaFleur said in his opening post-game remarks.
“It just comes down to the play calls and having answers to be able to protect against some of that,” LaFleur said. “Anytime you go against zero pressure, if you don’t make a team pay, they’re going to keep running it.
“And unfortunately we didn’t make them pay until late in the game. So, I would anticipate that we’re probably going to see some more zero blitz until we get it corrected.”
The last of those comments are the most interesting. As long as Aaron Rodgers returns, defenses are unlikely to approach Green Bay as Spagnuolo and Kansas City did on Sunday. The Chiefs teed off on Love, waiting for him to make one big play against the zero blitz on a third down. It never came. Had Rodgers been under center, Kansas City almost certainly wouldn’t have been that aggressive, leaving little to no help on the backend. As a result, the Chiefs held the Packers to seven points, and Love is getting buried as a result.
Some of the numbers indicate it wasn’t as bad as some are making it appear to be. Nobody is arguing that Love was tremendous. He wasn’t. However, when he did have time and KC didn’t blitz him, he made plays later on in the game.
LaFleur’s scheme didn’t help. It was puzzling to see Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon combine for only 20 carries in a game where they ran it effectively — and very much needed to. They didn’t touch the ball nearly enough.
Scheme aside, the offensive line had its struggles too. It’s tricky to hand out a ton of blame when the Chiefs’ defense brought more players than the Packers had blockers, but there were some unmistakable whiffs and lapses. Royce Newman, the rookie right guard, had a noticeably tough day.
Allowing six quarterback pressures on your own isn’t going to help any quarterback, let alone a dude making his first start. Yes, Newman is also only a rookie, and the Packers have had to shuffle pieces on the offensive line this year. But it was genuinely a debacle of an outing for Newman. If Love can get as heavily criticized as he is after one start, Newman deserves some blame despite only being a rookie. The struggles of the offense overall were one giant, intertwined domino effect. It led to Green Bay putting up single digits for the second time this season. Love was able to find a groove, but not until it was a bit too late for the Packers.
“I think we started having a better answer in the end, but they were bringing the all-out,” Love said. “They were heating us up and we just weren’t able to execute on those plays we had against it.
“All it took was maybe one big play against it and it wouldn’t have been coming as much. Obviously we weren’t able to execute (against) it. That’s why they kept bringing it.”
One start isn’t the be-all-end-all for Love. But it may be the only look the Packers get at him until the end of this year. If Rodgers returns against the Seahawks as expected, Love returns to the sideline and will have seen only one start in two years after being selected in the first round of the 2020 draft. The outing against Kansas City wasn’t inspiring, but bailing on Love after just this one game would be foolish. Selecting him with Rodgers still in Green Bay might be the biggest gaffe of them all. Not because of Love, but because it was too early to put Rodgers’ succession plan into motion.
Love could’ve been better. The throws could’ve been more accurate in doable spots. But this was an all-around ugly outing for the offense. Love wasn’t assisted by the game plan, and the offensive line didn’t chip in too much either. The coaching staff will have to decide how to weigh those factors as they strive to improve.
