Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur believes the fifth-year quarterback is becoming one of the ‘real dudes’ at the position after he waited three years to start.
The Green Bay Packers called a dagger concept and, at first blush for coach Matt LaFleur, the throw for Jordan Love was wide open down the field. So the resulting checkdown that went to AJ Dillon for 22 yards wasn’t something LaFleur initially saw as an ideal execution of the play.And the answer didn’t lie in what he saw. In fact, what made the play is what he didn’t see.
How the first play unfolded essentially informed LaFleur that even if things didn’t go right around Love—and no protection is set up to allow an athletic defensive tackle a free run at the quarterback—on that kind of call, he could trust the former first-rounder to do the right thing. That, in turn, emboldened LaFleur to go right back to the concept a few plays later, with some adjustment, knowing if something else short-circuited, Love would handle it.
LaFleur’s never been shy about his feelings on developing young quarterbacks. Most of them, he thinks, should sit. When I asked him about it again , as I had last summer, I brought up the example not just of Love, but of his predecessor in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers, plus Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. Put together, those four guys played less than two full games of snaps as NFL rookies.
So rather than dwell on his struggles, he learned from them. Rather than wallow in his own missteps, he tried to set the pace for everyone on a young offense to learn from theirs. Four days before the Thanksgiving game, Love engineered a game-winning, seven-play, 75-yard drive late in the fourth quarter to get the Packers to 4–6 with a 23–20 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. The dagger calls against the Lions came four days later and, yes, Love saw them as affirmation that LaFleur’s confidence in him, and the offense, was coming, even when the wins weren’t.
Love was 22-of-32 passing for 268 yards and three touchdowns for a 125.5 passer rating against the Lions on Thanksgiving Day. / Lon Horwedel-USA TODAY Sports “Early on in that game, I started really feeling that, started playing well. We got in the two-minute situation toward the end where there was a lot of good situational awareness there. I didn’t have the outcome I wanted. But I definitely felt that confidence in myself keep picking up. I was playing fast and getting the ball out and playing on time.”
Four years ago, he might not have been able to do one of those things effectively in that particular spot. And here, he was doing all of them at once. “The thing that I was most impressed by last year was when we were sitting at 2–5 and 3–6, I didn’t feel him ever wavering in his belief, first and foremost with himself and everything that we are doing,” LaFleur says. “I feel like it is rare. A guy gets discouraged, or a guy’s got a lot of fight in him. He doesn’t allow the moment, whether good or bad, dictate what happens next. He just continues to work and grind. He’s seen the benefits of it.
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