Week 14 Picks - Just Jordan

I think it’s easy to forget that Aaron Rodgers knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Yes, he’s too eager sometimes of how smart he is, but he’s survived as a high-level quarterback in the NFL for the better part of two decades, and he’s old enough to have gained some decent perspective on how life works. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, but you probably won’t go wrong at least giving him a little bit of your time when he weighs in on football-related issues.

I bring this up because Rodgers had some good things to say about Jordan Love this week during his appearance on Pat McAfee’s show. Specifically, Rodgers wants everyone to pump the brakes on judging Love this season, whether you’re inclined to love him or not. Here’s one of his longer quotes:

"He’s playing, especially the last two games, outstanding, but he’s in his first year starting. As well as he’s playing can we not crown him right now? For his own sake. Because we shouldn't do that to kids. We shouldn't crown him and we shouldn’t cancel him. I love Jordan. I think he's going to be a great player in the league for a long time. But can we let him play his career?"

I think this basically gets to where I’ve landed on Jordan Love at this point, with five games remaining in the regular season. Through 12 weeks of football, we’ve seen some pretty bad stuff from Love and some really good stuff from Love. He’s looked, by and large, like a green but growing quarterback, and he’s holding up his end of the “this year is all about evaluating Jordan Love” bargain by giving the decision-makers in Green Bay plenty to evaluate.

But given that we’ve seen both good and bad, now is probably as good a time as any to hit pause on future evaluations. The bad was concerning. Mitigating factors aside (and admittedly, there have always been a lot of mitigating factors), Love’s performance in the early portion of the 2023 season was unsustainably bad. Had he not pulled out of the tailspin this season, there would have been little reason to assume he ever would. But he has.

Likewise, the good is promising, truly. But other quarterbacks have had great streaks, too. True, you won’t find many that have put up the run that Love has recently and later regressed, but some have. Baker Mayfield, for instance, had a five-game run as a rookie where he completed nearly 70% of his passes, throwing 13 touchdowns against just two interceptions while piling up more than 1,100 yards. Daniel Jones put up a comparable stat line in a five-game stretch as a rookie. Jared Goff was setting the world on fire for the Lions near the end of last season, completing more than 67% of his passes for more than 1,500 yards, 15 touchdowns, and no interceptions. A five-game streak does not a quarterback make.

So we’ve seen it all. We know what Love can do, both good and bad. Waiting to see what wins out is going to take a while, but we’re all here for the long game anyway. For our own good, maybe we should listen to Aaron Rodgers.

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