Jordan Love isn’t worried about a quarterback competition. The gig is his, and the Green Bay Packers hope it stays that way for at least the next decade.
Still, backup quarterback is an ever-important position, especially for teams routinely in contention.
Given Green Bay’s current backup quarterback situation and general manager Brian Gutekunst’s belief in drafting quarterbacks, selecting another one this week makes perfect sense.
Even after Love took over the starting role in 2023, Green Bay used a fifth-round pick on Sean Clifford that April and a seventh-round pick on quarterback Michael Pratt in 2024. In either case, it wasn’t a move to push Love and elevate the competition in the starting role. That was already secured.
Instead, Gutekunst and Co. were trying to ensure that the rest of the quarterback room was suitable should Love go down with an injury.
After neither Clifford nor Pratt raised the bar last summer, Gutekunst sent a seventh-round selection to Tennessee for Malik Willis. Sure enough, the Packers eventually called upon Willis, starting him in two games early in the year and filling in for large portions of two other games.
Willis struggled in limited starting action with the Tennessee Titans in 2022, but he looked like a completely different quarterback in Matt LaFleur’s scheme. Willis was more than a game manager. In back-to-back starts against the Indianapolis Colts and his former team, he had the offense in cruise control, helping the Packers get two wins in as many starts with Love sidelined.
While all that was fine and dandy for the Packers, Willis’ play raised eyebrows league-wide. Some even openly pondered whether he deserved a shot to start somewhere else down the road.
As good as Willis looked, that opportunity won’t come in Green Bay unless the ground completely caves in underneath Love. With Willis entering a contract year and still set to be the backup in 2025, the real concern is what lies ahead beyond this season.
It’s entirely possible Willis plays out the contract this year and signs elsewhere next offseason, where he has a shot at competing for a starting spot. If that’s the case, Green Bay must accelerate the process of finding his replacement.
It shouldn’t be a problem. Gutekunst mentioned last offseason, via Bill Huber of SI.com, that he wants to get back to drafting quarterbacks regularly.
For me, getting back to drafting multiple quarterbacks is something that I’ve wanted to do. We kind of went away from that for a few years and I’d like to get back to that because I just think having young, talented quarterbacks on your roster that the coaches can develop, I just think is really healthy and important for a franchise.
Important indeed, and with Willis’ future with the Packers beyond 2025 uncertain, drafting a quarterback this week makes too much sense.
Clifford is still with the Packers, but he hasn’t done much in two years to inspire confidence that he can develop under LaFleur and the rest of the staff’s tutelage to be a steady No. 2. If that were the case, Green Bay wouldn’t have pivoted to Willis last offseason.
Green Bay won’t be in the market for a quarterback early. Selecting Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe, or even Tyler Shough would require using an early pick, and that’s not in Gutekunst’s blueprint. Names like Texas’s Quinn Ewers, Syracuse’s Kyle McCord, or Memphis’s Seth Henigan would be more realistic, given they are all likely to be Day 3 picks.
It’s also worth noting that the Packers had Canadian quarterback Taylor Elgersma in for a top-30 visit. Elgersma comes from Wilfrid Laurier, a Canadian collegiate program. He’s not a Canadian Football League player.
Elgersma is showing up in vanishingly few mock drafts, so it’s at least somewhat feasible that the Packers invited him for a visit to try to win him over to signing with them if he becomes an undrafted free agent. Or maybe Green Bay considers him a seventh-round prospect.
Regardless of its direction, Willis and Clifford aren’t under contract beyond 2025, and the chance for Willis to compete for a starting spot somewhere else will likely be too enticing for him to pass up. It’s well-deserved after he rejuvenated his career in 2024.
It would be an interesting test of Gutekunst’s philosophy about consistently taking a flier on quarterbacks in the draft if Willis weren’t under contract past 2025. Instead, the circumstances suggest Green Bay will likely pluck a quarterback off the board at some point on Day 3 of the draft.
Don’t be surprised when it happens.
