INDIANAPOLIS — For the Green Bay Packers, the clock is ticking on at least two levels.
There is the matter of one Aaron Rodgers, who has emerged from his darkness retreat and is waiting to see what the team he has defined for so long wants to do with him: Keep him, trade him, etc.
Then, there is the matter of Jordan Love, the (for now) backup quarterback who the team traded up to select with the 26th pick in the 2020 draft. Love has had limited regular-season reps through his three NFL seasons, completing 50 of 83 passes for 606 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 79.7. Nothing Love has done to this point will make anybody forget Rodgers, who probably had the best pure arm in pro football history in his prime, but as Love moves into his fourth NFL season, the Packers are looking at the possibility of a wasted first-round pick if they don’t get enough live intel on Love to know whether he’ll be worth the fifth-year option and beyond.
All of that was on the mind of general manager Brian Gutekunst when he took the podium on Tuesday to speak with assembled media at the scouting combine.
“We’ve exchanged some texts and things like that,” Gutekunst said of his recent communications with Rodgers. “But we haven’t had a chance to speak yet… We’re going through our process as normal. So obviously, free agency’s coming up here. That’s an important part of what we’re doing. So it’d be nice to have some answers before then. But until we have any conversations, we’re still in a good spot.”
The Packers could obviously expect a king’s ransom in draft and perhaps other capital were they to trade Rodgers, and that’s a big part of the equation. But the other chunk of the story is how much Gutekunst wants to see more of Love in the regular season.
“We’re excited about him,” Gutekunst said.” I think I’ve expressed to a lot of people that he needs to play. That’s the next step in his progression. He needs to play. Jordan’s done a great job working hard, so he’s doing everything we’re asking.
“I just think the [comfort] of the offense and the confidence in it, I guess, is the biggest thing. I think he was just making quicker decisions and just letting it rip a little bit more. And I think he was thinking less and playing more. Certainly, he didn’t get a lot of opportunity during the season to go out there and perform. When he did, we thought he executed very well. But I know just watching him through practice, not only in the offseason last year, training camp, but into the season how he approached the weeks, there was just a different level of intensity week in and week out than there had been prior.”
So. in the end, what happens with Rodgers may or may not have to do primarily with the team’s unhappiness with him, or his with them. It may come to an inflection point where the Packers need to know what they have in Love, with the understanding that what they’d get in return for Rodgers would help Love in ways Rodgers was probably never helped.
“I don’t know if he changed our thinking,” Gutekunst said of Love and his 2022 season. “I think whenever players progress, it factors into all the decisions that you’re making. We took him for a reason back in 2020, he’s been progressing nicely, and to see him kind of take the jump he did this past year was nice. Again, it’s much different than going out there week in, week out, taking on the challenges when teams are game planning for you. We were talking earlier about the length of time it takes a quarterback to go from playing well to winning in this league, and he’ll need to go through those things just like every other quarterback. He’s taken some really good jumps and there’s more out there for him, but I think the things that are out there for him, he’s going to need to play to do that.”
Brian Gutekunst couldn’t have made it any clearer than he did. He wants Jordan Love on the field more than Jordan Love has been on the field, and “whither Aaron Rodgers” might be the sub-story here.
