Why the Packers Should Wait on Trading Jordan Love
With Aaron Rodgers now locked in as the Packers’ starting quarterback for the foreseeable future, Jordan Love’s path to a starting job in Green Bay is all but closed. Whether the pick was good or bad is now immaterial; with Rodgers as the long-term starter, the only discussion worth having concerning Love is when he makes his exit from the Packers.
There’s an understandable temptation to want to deal Love right now. There’s clearly no big role available in Green Bay, so why not ship him out for a pick in the upcoming draft as soon as possible?
But moving for speed would be a mistake for a couple of reasons. Here’s why.
1 - Holding onto Love increases the chance of a panic buy
Love’s market value right now doesn’t strike me as particularly high. For a variety of reasons, he hasn’t been all that spectacular in the preseason or his limited regular-season action. Whatever positive momentum that had him rocketing up draft boards in the spring of 2020 is long gone. And since the Packers have already burned two years of Love’s rookie deal, he’s less valuable than one of the comparable quarterbacks in an admittedly weak 2022 draft class. If a team thinks an available rookie quarterback offers something close to what Love could give them, why wouldn’t they take the player who’s going to be under their control for longer?
Veteran quarterbacks are also muddling the picture for Love a bit. Aaron Rodgers is back in Green Bay and Russell Wilson has been traded, but there’s more to the market than that. Mitchell Trubisky is taking up at least one available starting spot in Pittsburgh (though for how long is an open question) and Jimmy Garoppolo and Deshaun Watson are also going to get moved at some point. A few dominos are going to have to fall before Love is even in the conversation.
But that, I argue, is actually a point in the Packers’ favor, because it increases the chances someone will do something stupid.
Imagine, if you will, a franchise that is bad, but not that bad. A team that isn’t terrible enough to be picking near the tip-top of the draft order, but certainly isn’t loaded with talent. This team probably limped into the playoffs based on either the strength of its defense or the weakness of its division or both. This is a team that, in a moment of honesty, probably would admit that it doesn’t love its starting quarterback.
The Eagles and Commanders come the closest to ticking all those boxes, but it really could be just about any team in need of a quarterback that’s hoping to get one through the draft, not via trade. (And yes, I know the Commanders just traded for Carson Wentz, that’s not the point of this example.) What happens if they miss out on getting a rookie they like in this year’s class? Or, as with the case of the Vikings a few years back, what if their stopgap veteran suddenly finds himself injured?
That’s when Jordan Love becomes most valuable as a trade piece. Once the initial wave of veteran movement is over and once the draft has concluded, teams are still going to need quarterbacks. That’s when Love, who still presents plenty of value on his rookie deal, is going to be even more appealing to QB-needy teams.
2 - Jordan Love still offers value as a backup
But even if the Packers don’t move Jordan Love this offseason or this summer, there’s still plenty of value to be retained.
Not to belabor this point, but rookie quarterbacks are cheap. If the Packers can’t move Love, or can’t get an offer that makes them want to, there’s really no great cost to keeping him. He certainly won’t wreck the Packers’ cap, and there’s real value to keeping him as a backup quarterback.
Whether you agree with the idea that Love can be a long-term NFL starter or not, he’s still got plenty of interesting physical tools. His arm talent is real (if inconsistent) and he’s a good (if not great) athlete. Couple that with two-plus years in the Packers system and you could do a lot worse for a backup quarterback.
That’s hardly what the Packers could have been hoping for when they traded up for him in the first round in 2020, but we’re past that point. The decision has been made, and even if the plan wasn’t “long-term backup” when Love was drafted, there’s still value in having a backup quarterback that doesn’t terrify you.