Many a Wisconsonite spit out their Spotted Cow when Jordan Love was announced as the 72nd-ranked player in the NFL’s slowly unveiling top-100 list. Is that really a fair assessment of Love’s play in 2025?
Let’s start with the obvious. If the NFL started over today from scratch with one huge draft, Love would not be the 72nd player selected. He’d go far higher, as would most other quarterbacks in this quarterback-driven league.
But that isn’t what this annual poll reflects. Instead, the voting body entirely consists of other players around the league and is shaped by their assessment of their colleagues.
But it still feels as though Love was criminally underrated.
According to PFF, no quarterback in the entire league was better than Love against Cover 0 or Cover 1 in 2025. His grade of a 92.2 against Cover 0 ranked as the highest for any quarterback against that defensive look with at least 20 dropbacks in a given season since Tom Brady in 2021. Anytime you’re lumped into a category with Brady as a quarterback, it’s probably a good thing.
Granted, seeing Cover 0 doesn’t happen as much as you might think because it’s a roll of the dice for a defense. It’s an all-or-nothing strategy with blitzing players flying out of nowhere and no over-the-top help on the back end. However, the Packers happen to play in a division where the team that plays Cover 0 the most also resides – the Minnesota Vikings. Love was in the middle of the pack though when it came to number of times facing a Cover 0 look, finishing 13th in the NFL. Nearly every time he did see it though in 2025, he was slicing and dicing the opposing defense.
The results were similar against Cover 1 looks.
In general, but especially when evaluating quarterback play, you want your guy to be at his best when his best is required. Everyone knows the Packers came up short in the playoffs against the Chicago Bears in disastrous fashion, but Love’s individual performance was strong. Their shortcomings all came from other units or position groups.
Love finished that game last January in Chicago having thrown for 323 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions, and boasting a QBR of 80.6. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, where you’re playing, or what else is going on, anyone signs up for that quarterback performance in a playoff game 100 times out of 100. The Packers lost but it was of little to no fault of Love’s.
Certainly the expectations for the 2025 Packers were higher than a one-and-done Wild Card berth, yet even getting that far is thanks in large part to Love. It wasn’t quite an MVP-caliber performance, but there weren’t 71 other guys doing a better job in the NFL.
Love has always been polarizing. Packers fans in large part have boarded the bandwagon and will ride or die for Love. Detractors – who aren’t Bears, Vikings, or Detroit Lions – will point to his inconsistencies and inevitably compare him to Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre.
That’s where the conversation gets warped.
Rodgers has four MVPs on his resumé and has Brady on record calling him the best pure passer the game has ever seen. Favre also collected multiple MVPs. Both won a Super Bowl in Green Bay.
The conversation surrounding Love easily goes off the rails when comparisons to Rodgers and Favre are fired up. Love isn’t at that yet, and maybe he never reaches it. It’s a crazy-high level! But at minimum, he’s a playoff caliber quarterback, having appeared in the postseason in each of his first three years as the starter.
So is the NFL Top 100 ranking fair or foul? Maybe it’s not egregious, but it feels pretty slanted.vLove had a good 2025 season and one that warranted more recognition. But he’s just now entering the prime of his career, so there’s every reason to think he’ll get his flowers soon enough.
