A bright new era awaits for Jordan Love after Aaron Rodgers declared his intention to play with the New York Jets in the 2023 season.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is a lot of things — cactus-levels of prickly, volatile, rough around the edges, passionate about his Bears ownership, media-loathing, just plain weird — but he’s also a classy guy, and he made sure to give his blessing to Jordan Love as he prepares to move on from his beloved franchise.
Just how much does Rodgers love Green Bay? He said it in every other sentence in a Wednesday appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, and despite Rodgers’ intimation that the Packers moved on from him first, he holds a great deal of respect and appreciation for the organization.
It was his first and only home, and it’s Jordan Love’s home now.
To pass the flaming torch into the hands of 2020 first-rounder Jordan Love is certainly a nice way for Rodgers to go and should earn the veteran quarterback some karmic brownie points.
Rodgers is preparing to start the next chapter of his career in New York and hopes Love will do the same in Green Bay, calling his successor a “great player” and a “great kid” on The Pat McAfee Show.
One can’t ignore the similarities between Love’s career start with the Packers and Rodgers’ career start with the Packers: Love played behind Rodgers for three seasons, just as Rodgers played behind Brett Favre for three seasons.
Aaron Rodgers passes the torch to Jordan Love ahead of imminent Packers trade
Rodgers continues to follow in Favre’s footsteps by making the cross-conference leap to the Jets, and now Love will take the reins of Matt LaFleur’s offense with a strong endorsement from Rodgers himself, moral support from his Packers teammates, and the utmost confidence from the franchise.
Love’s Year 3 in the league was a tiny sample size, but apparently it was all the Packers’ brass needed to see. In a late-season game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Love replaced an injured Rodgers in the fourth quarter to throw for 113 yards and one touchdown, ultimately losing the game.
Still, the Utah State product looked comfortable in the pocket and capable of making accurate throws and quick decisions, giving Packers coaches a solid foundation to continue molding in 2023 and beyond.
With Rodgers out and Love in, the Packers offense may return to more of its LaFleur-ian principles of going under center and scheming up more play-action. In 2022, the offense strayed away from that as Rodgers kicked things into his own gear, yet in Love’s case, those kinds of schematic changes will make his life easier and provide him with a set of training wheels as the young signal-caller develops his ability to read the field.
Put it this way, if the Packers didn’t think Love was the right guy for the job, they wouldn’t have so willingly let Rodgers go.
Love now carries the immense burden of blazing his own path after Rodgers’ and Favre’s combined 30 seasons of Hall-of-Fame quarterback play, a damn-near impossible act for anyone to follow. At least Love can invite his family to watch his games at Lambeau — a small silver lining for a kid ready to make his dreams to come true.
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Author: Kristen Wong
