Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst put his football future on the line by trading up in the 2020 NFL Draft to select quarterback Jordan Love 26th overall after an Aaron Rodgers-led Packers squad reached the NFC Championship game in head coach Matt LaFleur’s first season with the team in 2019.
Gutekunst’s gamble has clearly paid off.
The Packers are re-signing him to a four-year contract extension worth $220 million, per CBS Sports lead NFL insider Jonathan Jones. Jones adds Love gets a $75 million signing bonus, the biggest in NFL history, with $160.3 million of the contract guaranteed.
ESPN reports that the contract comes with $155 million in new full guarantees. Love ties Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow in being the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL at $55 million per year.
The 25-year-old started slow with 14 touchdowns to 10 interception as the Packers went 3-6 in his first nine starts of 2023, his first season as Green Bay’s primary starting quarterback, but he caught fire during the second half of the season, throwing 23 touchdowns to only three interceptions, including the postseason. Love’s 32 regular-season touchdowns passes ranked as the second most in the NFL behind only Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s 36.
Jordan Love 2023 season (including playoffs)
| First Nine Games | Last 10 Games | |
|---|---|---|
W-L | 3-6 | 7-3 |
Comp Pct | 58.7% | 69.8% |
Pass YPG | 223.2 | 261.6 |
TD-INT | 14-10 | 23-3 |
Passer Rating | 80.5 | 112.1 |
The 2020 first-round pick also became only the fifth player in NFL history to throw for over 4,000 yards (4,159) and over 30 touchdowns (32) in his first season as a full-time NFL starting quarterback.
Players with 30 pass TD and 4,000 pass yards in first season as full-time starter (NFL history):
* Full-time starter = started at least 50% of team games
** Pro Football Hall of Famer
The highlight of Love’s 2023 campaign came in the seventh-seeded Packers’ 48-32 demolition of the second-seeded Dallas Cowboys in the NFC wild-card round of the playoffs, in which he played nearly perfect football. Love set Green Bay’s postseason single-game passer rating record (157.2) and passing yards-per-attempt record (13) after throwing for 272 yards and three touchdowns while completing 16 of his 21 pass attempts.
“Man, Jordan Love. Wow. That’s about all I can say, is wow,” LaFleur said postgame that day. “What he did, the poise he shows, the command he shows. The touchdown pass to Dontayvion Wicks. We were obviously in an empty set. He had, I think it was (tight end) Tucker (Kraft), max protect. It was a great job by Tuck and the rest of our offensive line. And for him to hang in there and get that throw. Wicks made a hell of a catch. Those are things that, you can try to coach it, but what a moment for him. To me, that was a big time play. It just shows the growth that he’s had from his first start versus KC to now. I’m just so proud and happy for him. He is, he’s a dude. He’s a real dude.”
All of Love’s production came while throwing to the most productive, young group of pass-catchers since at least 1970 as the Packers’ 302 catches, 3,642 receiving yards and 31 receiving touchdowns are all the most by a team’s group of first- or second-year pass-catchers since the AFL/NFL merger. Green Bay’s 2023 squad also became the youngest team in that same span, since 1970, to win a playoff game with an average age of 25 years and 214 days.
The Packers nearly knocked off the NFC’s top-seeded San Francisco 49ers as well in the NFC Divisional Round, but a missed field goal late provided San Francisco with the field position and time to march down the field for the go-ahead touchdown. Love threw a cross-body interception on a desperation heave on the final drive, which resulted in a 24-21 loss.
Gutekunst has continued to beef up the Packers roster around Love this offseason while simultaneously ensuring his team remains just as young or younger than it is was in 2023. He replaced longtime starting running back Aaron Jones with former Raiders Pro Bowler Josh Jacobs (four years, $48 million), signed the top free agent safety Xavier McKinney (four years, $67 million) and selected Arizona left tackle Jordan Morgan 25th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft to replace the oft-injured All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari. Green Bay also replaced defensive coordinator Joe Berry, who ran a more passive, zone-heavy scheme, with Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley, who runs a more aggressive, press man coverage-style defense.
The Packers nearly knocked off the eventual NFC champion in Love’s first go-around as the team’s starting quarterback, but they did win a playoff game in his first year as a starter, something Green Bay didn’t do in each of Rodgers’ first two seasons running the show in 2008 or 2009. However, Rodgers helped power the Packers to a Super Bowl XLV title in his third season under center in 2010. As of now, Love is ahead of schedule from his four-time NFL MVP predecessor’s career arc with the full backing from the NFL’s winningest franchise (13 NFL championships) that he can one day also help bring the Vince Lombardi Trophy back home to Green Bay.
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Author: Garrett Podell
July 26, 2024 | 9:30 pm
