Rodgers wants out

[Crazylegs Starks]

<respectful snip>...Undrafted Tyler Huntley is in year two and almost beat the Packers. How many years should first round selection Love be given before we can accurately judge him, 2 or 3 more?

It's a good question.

In all fairness to Huntley, who I thought looked good, we don't know what he was asked to do in the Ravens offense. It could have been as simple as "run the play as called, if your first read isn't open, run". Now if he was reading through all the routes, adjusting routes, and changing protections, etc. then that would be impressive.

Then we also have to wonder, what was Love asked to do? We know he was adjusting protections (or trying to anyway.) Beyond that...???

[YoHoChecko]

I think it's a mistake to make universal comparisons about QBs readiness and timelines.

I will say up front, I was very disappointed with what we saw from Love in Kansas City--more disappointed watching live than after watching some smart QB play analysts break him down. But we took a guy knowing he had elite physical talent but needed a LOT of work on the fundamentals and the mental aspect, AND we prepped him on a schedule knowing we had a Hall of Fame QB signed for 3 more years. They made him the 3rd stringer, focused on fundamentals and professional preparation, and let him sit and learn.

When Rodgers said he might not return, we had to suddenly hurry up and try to get him ready to start. ALL observers said he was much much better in training camp season 2 than season 1, so the learning helped. But it was also immediately clear that he was not fundamentally sound yet and wasn't ready to start. That might mean he'll never be ready to start at a high level; it might not mean that. Plenty of QBs--including Rodgers--have had rough outings in years 1 and 2 and gone on to be stars. Personally, I want to figure out what the Bills did with Josh Allen to get him from a 59% passer to a 69% passer between years 2 and 3. That type of accuracy improvement is nearly unprecedented.

Tyler Huntley is a mobile QB who makes a lot of plays with his feet. Personally, I loved him coming out of the draft. I thought he was worth a 5th round pick to develop, but he went undrafted. But there is a long history of mobile QBs coming in in short spurts or early in their careers and playing well (consider that Vince Young won rookie of the year) and then failing to sustain when they had to learn how to be pocket passers.

We're trying to teach Love to be a pocket passer before he is forced into much action. And that can take time. And what has been clear is that the marriage between footwork and routes--which both MLF and Rodgers and QB analysts like Dan Orlovsky point to constantly as a key to accurate passing--are not yet committed to muscle memory. This means that when there is pressure, when he's off schedule, his mechanics break down and the ball placement falls apart entirely.

You, [mention]Drj820[/mention], harp incessantly on comparisons and timelines and when SHOULD someone be ready or not be ready. It's your go-to response to every single young QB having success anywhere in the league--comparison to Love and setting timeline expectations. But that is irrelevant. What's relevant is where Love actually is in his development, and whether the Packers believe it's fixable and teachable. Then they have to do it. If Love learns the mechanics and adapts them more slowly into his gameplay, that stinks, but we also drafted him with a 2-3 year runway to work that out. And if it is fixable and teachable and he will adapt, it will be well worth it.

It might not be. He might never click. It might never improve. But comparing him to other QBs without, as others mentioned, knowing what's being asked and what the process is, just doesn't help anyone or inform anything. It's as useless as talking to yoop about the importance of pass rush versus coverage and pressures and hurries and all that.

[Drj820]

You, @Drj820, harp incessantly on comparisons and timelines and when SHOULD someone be ready or not be ready. It's your go-to response to every single young QB having success anywhere in the league--comparison to Love and setting timeline expectations. But that is irrelevant. What's relevant is where Love actually is in his development, and whether the Packers believe it's fixable and teachable. Then they have to do it. If Love learns the mechanics and adapts them more slowly into his gameplay, that stinks, but we also drafted him with a 2-3 year runway to work that out. And if it is fixable and teachable and he will adapt, it will be well worth it.

this charactarization is unfair. I have only repeatedly asked when it is fair to begin to judge Love or make assessments on projecting his future. Most people have told me last year didnt count at all due to covid, his two preseason games didnt count because it was basically his rookie year, and his first full start didnt count because he was on the road in a hostile environment. I have just asked how long must I wait until i can trust what my eyes are seeing?

btw, i have never said he will be a long term flop. My pushback on most of the Love commentary is just that most people seem to feel it is too early to start to judge the kid. I do not. I see young guys coming into the league looking the part all time within their first couple years, so i think it is fair to hold Love to a standard other guys are being held to.

[Half Empty]

Love not even dressing his rookie year should tell you all you need to know about what Lafluer sees behind the scenes.

That told us what he thought of Love in his rookie year, which is pretty irrelevant now tbh.

What we want to know is what does he think of him now he's been in the league for 2 years.

The good news is we'll find out in the next few months!

and we arent allowed to use the data compiled from a full game of action against the chiefs to begin to form a year 2 judgement on Love are we?

Glad somebody gets it. That is what you meant, right? One game under unusual circumstances isn't a rational basis for that judgement.

[YoHoChecko]

this charactarization is unfair. I have only repeatedly asked when it is fair to begin to judge Love or make assessments on projecting his future. Most people have told me last year didnt count at all due to covid, his two preseason games didnt count because it was basically his rookie year, and his first full start didnt count because he was on the road in a hostile environment. I have just asked how long must I wait until i can trust what my eyes are seeing?

btw, i have never said he will be a long term flop. My pushback on most of the Love commentary is just that most people seem to feel it is too early to start to judge the kid. I do not. I see young guys coming into the league looking the part all time within their first couple years, so i think it is fair to hold Love to a standard other guys are being held to.

See I don't think it's unfair at all. You ask when you see Huntley do well. You ask when you see Herbert do well. You ask when the topic is brought up. You bring the topic up. And then, as you do here, again, you compare it to other situations.

How long must we wait? We don't know. The point is to evaluate LOVE and not to evaluate a timeline of expectations. You have seen many young players come in and look the part. And we have seen many young players look lost early. And we have seen players improve from that with time, and we have seen players never recover and wash out of the league.

I used to think that all rookie QBs should sit for a year. I thought so based on some statistical analysis I did a decade or so ago. When I went and started to work on that again last summer, I noticed a divergent trend. The QBs who start as rookies week 1 actually tended to do well. The ones who did not start week one but are forced into action later in the year are the ones that most often never seem to recover. What that told me is that teams are actually fairly good judges of their young QB's readiness, but often losing games and injuries and fan/owner pressure to "see what the young guy can do" pushes them onto the field before they are ready, and they predictably fail, and often don't fully recover, or at least don't develop as well as they should/could have.

You have to look at individuals. There's no point, no use, in continuously asking "how long must we wait" every time you see a competent young QB play. The answer is that we must wait until Rodgers is gone. Not a day sooner. And then we can begin to evaluate what we have. Fortunately for us, the team--who has the inside access to all the things we don't--can start to make their determination sooner, and can prepare/adapt accordingly.

[Drj820]

You have to look at individuals. There's no point, no use, in continuously asking "how long must we wait" every time you see a competent young QB play. The answer is that we must wait until Rodgers is gone. Not a day sooner. And then we can begin to evaluate what we have. Fortunately for us, the team--who has the inside access to all the things we don't--can start to make their determination sooner, and can prepare/adapt accordingly.

If Love stinks at practice and doesnt appear to be ready by the time Rodgers leaves, I hope we trade Rodgers for a QB more proven instead of waste a year giving Love an audition. Rebuild shouldnt be as painful if we stop paying 12, hope we can get a QB in that gives us a chance to win if needed.

[YoHoChecko]

You have to look at individuals. There's no point, no use, in continuously asking "how long must we wait" every time you see a competent young QB play. The answer is that we must wait until Rodgers is gone. Not a day sooner. And then we can begin to evaluate what we have. Fortunately for us, the team--who has the inside access to all the things we don't--can start to make their determination sooner, and can prepare/adapt accordingly.

If Love stinks at practice and doesnt appear to be ready by the time Rodgers leaves, I hope we trade Rodgers for a QB more proven instead of waste a year giving Love an audition. Rebuild shouldnt be as painful if we stop paying 12, hope we can get a QB in that gives us a chance to win if needed.

If the team doesn't think Love is capable of taking over as the starter, I hope they extend Rodgers for 4 more years, try to showcase Love's strengths in the preseason and hope they can recover a pick for him.

If they think he's redeemable and close but it just hasn't quite clicked and gotten there yet, then I hope that after they trade Rodgers, they also spend a mid-round pick on a QB prospect (just because Brian Braum was a bust doesn't mean the strategy of covering your @$$ wasn't sound).

There are many contingencies about how the team should act based upon their internal assessments of Love and Rodgers. I HOPE Love has earned their confidence well enough by the end of the year, because Rodgers creeping into that "contemplating retirement to the media" territory does not give me a ton of confidence in the length of extension it would take to wrap him up and keep the cap manageable. But I don't pretend to know anything.

I'm simply stating, over and over again, that Love's issues are observable. His timeline to get ready should be based on his own progress, not on the qualities, characteristics, and timelines of other QBs. And we at home don't need to know or see anything yet, because we drafted a guy when we still had Rodgers specifically BECAUSE we had a lot of time to make those coaching corrections.

The reason Love was a polarizing player, with some evaluators calling him a top-15 prospect and others a 3rd rounder is because he was more tools and talent than pro-ready prospect. He was more projection than plug-and-play. Our GM trusted our coaching staff with that task because we had the circumstance and staff to allow the process to play out. Not because Love would be a starting caliber QB from day one and impatiently sit on the bench waiting to light the world on fire so much so that we push Rodgers out. If that was the case, we would have let Rodgers leave when he wanted to last year.

Did the team want to force Rodgers out and replace him? The answer is self-evidently no, they did not. Because when Rodgers tried to force himself out, the team said no and changed everyone's contracts in order to keep him. So yeah, the Love pick was a long-term move with a long-term coaching plan and a long-term development project. And so placing him on some other QB's timeline with some other organization's circumstances and some fan's expectations doesn't make any sense.

[British]

Whoever the QB is next year we're unlikely to win the SB. If Rodgers goes I'd rather give Love a full season audition and end up picking top 10, than deceiving ourselves into thinking we can win with a worse roster than '22 and a worse QB than Rodgers.

We've had Rodgers for 10 years now without a Superbowl. Let's not think we can win it all with a cap crunch and someone like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson at QB.

[bud fox]

Whoever the QB is next year we're unlikely to win the SB. If Rodgers goes I'd rather give Love a full season audition and end up picking top 10, than deceiving ourselves into thinking we can win with a worse roster than '22 and a worse QB than Rodgers.

We've had Rodgers for 10 years now without a Superbowl. Let's not think we can win it all with a cap crunch and someone like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson at QB.

Definitely if Rodgers goes Love should be given the season.

However if Rodgers stays we can win a superbowl next year.

[British]

Whoever the QB is next year we're unlikely to win the SB. If Rodgers goes I'd rather give Love a full season audition and end up picking top 10, than deceiving ourselves into thinking we can win with a worse roster than '22 and a worse QB than Rodgers.

We've had Rodgers for 10 years now without a Superbowl. Let's not think we can win it all with a cap crunch and someone like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson at QB.

Definitely if Rodgers goes Love should be given the season.

However if Rodgers stays we can win a superbowl next year.

We can. But it would likely be tougher than this year.

[Drj820]

I think I would also be down with giving love the year if Rodgers leaves and if he flops at least we get a top draft pick, unless we can trade Rodgers to Seattle for Russ Wilson or something.

[British]

I think I would also be down with giving love the year if Rodgers leaves and if he flops at least we get a top draft pick, unless we can trade Rodgers to Seattle for Russ Wilson or something.

Trading for a vet in his 30s (coming off an atrocious season) doesn't feel like the Packer way. Maybe if we didn't have Love in-house already and we had the cap space to build around Wilson in '22. But it feels like it's a 95% certainty that our starter next year is either Rodgers or Love.

[go pak go]

Whoever the QB is next year we're unlikely to win the SB. If Rodgers goes I'd rather give Love a full season audition and end up picking top 10, than deceiving ourselves into thinking we can win with a worse roster than '22 and a worse QB than Rodgers.

We've had Rodgers for 10 years now without a Superbowl. Let's not think we can win it all with a cap crunch and someone like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson at QB.

Definitely if Rodgers goes Love should be given the season.

However if Rodgers stays we can win a superbowl next year.

If Rodgers is a Packer in 2022, it will be a lot of copy and paste of bud fox posts from 2015 - 2018 on this board.

What the hell. Add 2019 and 2020 into that as well.

[bud fox]

Whoever the QB is next year we're unlikely to win the SB. If Rodgers goes I'd rather give Love a full season audition and end up picking top 10, than deceiving ourselves into thinking we can win with a worse roster than '22 and a worse QB than Rodgers.

We've had Rodgers for 10 years now without a Superbowl. Let's not think we can win it all with a cap crunch and someone like Derek Carr or Russell Wilson at QB.

Definitely if Rodgers goes Love should be given the season.

However if Rodgers stays we can win a superbowl next year.

If Rodgers is a Packer in 2022, it will be a lot of copy and paste of bud fox posts from 2015 - 2018 on this board.

What the hell. Add 2019 and 2020 into that as well.

Hahah I had to have a think - assume it was the talentless roster period ... exciting times ahead

[British]

This thread got me seeking out some film breakdown of Love's KC game.

Really interesting stuff in here. A much better insight than you can get watching it live.

What stood out was how good the Kansas City D was, both in terms of gameplan and execution. The Packers WRs really didn't get much separation and the Packers OLine seemed utterly feeble. Definitely some things for Love to improve on but considering this was his first start on a short week, with the entire WR corps sitting out training camp when he might have built some chemistry with them, I came away feeling better than when I watched it the first time.

[YoHoChecko]

Really interesting stuff in here. A much better insight than you can get watching it live.

What stood out was how good the Kansas City D was, both in terms of gameplan and execution. The Packers WRs really didn't get much separation and the Packers OLine seemed utterly feeble. Definitely some things for Love to improve on but considering this was his first start on a short week, with the entire WR corps sitting out training camp when he might have built some chemistry with them, I came away feeling better than when I watched it the first time.

Gosh, his feet when he throws and his initial reaction to pressure are both so bad. I don't know much about QB fundamentals but man, the breakdowns really highlight it. He's trying to throw from any position the way Rodgers does/can, but Rodgers and Mahomes are pretty much the only guys who can do that routinely. Pocket poise can improve with experience, but the instincts sometimes you either have or you don't, and I'm not sure he has that natural feel in there. That makes me think he's going to have to get really good with the mental part of blitz recognition to make up for below-desired pocket awareness

[APB]

But we took a guy knowing he had elite physical talent but needed a LOT of work on the fundamentals and the mental aspect, AND we prepped him on a schedule knowing we had a Hall of Fame QB signed for 3 more years. They made him the 3rd stringer, focused on fundamentals and professional preparation, and let him sit and learn.

When Rodgers said he might not return, we had to suddenly hurry up and try to get him ready to start. ALL observers said he was much much better in training camp season 2 than season 1, so the learning helped. But it was also immediately clear that he was not fundamentally sound yet and wasn't ready to start. That might mean he'll never be ready to start at a high level; it might not mean that. Plenty of QBs--including Rodgers--have had rough outings in years 1 and 2 and gone on to be stars. Personally, I want to figure out what the Bills did with Josh Allen to get him from a 59% passer to a 69% passer between years 2 and 3. That type of accuracy improvement is nearly unprecedented.

I like your overall thoughts on refraining from making early judgments on Love but I gotta disagree with your assertion of the 3yr timeline thing.

The Packers had every intention of moving on from TBLS thus making Love the direct backup to Rodgers. To me, that says they felt he was at a progression level commensurate to that of stepping in when called upon to competently run the offense. I don’t think the Packers had to suddenly ramp up Love’s training regimen when Rodgers made his dissatisfaction publicly known. I think the Packers simply misjudged how far along Love was based upon practice snaps and the KC game was probably a wake up call to them.

[YoHoChecko]

I like your overall thoughts on refraining from making early judgments on Love but I gotta disagree with your assertion of the 3yr timeline thing.

The Packers had every intention of moving on from TBLS thus making Love the direct backup to Rodgers. To me, that says they felt he was at a progression level commensurate to that of stepping in when called upon to competently run the offense. I don’t think the Packers had to suddenly ramp up Love’s training regimen when Rodgers made his dissatisfaction publicly known. I think the Packers simply misjudged how far along Love was based upon practice snaps and the KC game was probably a wake up call to them.

I wonder why you would assert such things with a sense of certainty; "had every intention of moving on from TBLS"? Why do you think you know that? Do you mean at the time of the draft pick? Or by the time the whole offseason program had been canceled by COVID? You first assume that they wanted to move on from TBLS and make Love the backup. Based on that clear speculation, you assess the team's mindset on Love's timeline, and then you draw conclusions of disappointment based on a timeline you surmised through sheer speculation.

It's fine to speculate; we're all speculating. But don't say things so assured and emphatically as "the team had every intention" and base a whole set of conclusions off of an assumption without recognizing that there is no basis in evidence for it.

Like I said, this is the franchise--with many people who were brought up in the same culture/leadership still running the show--that waited 3 years for Rodgers. This is a league in which Jimmy G was drafted to be Brady's replacement and when Brady re-asserted himself as a long-term answer, and saw Jimmy G traded. The pick for Love was a long-term pick that opened doors to different paths, rather than set the organization on a pre-determined path. ANY good leader would only make such a move with contingency plans and options. Gutey has shown himself--especially through the strife of this year--to be someone who can adapt to new realities.

Anyone who tells me that the Packers picked Love knowing what would happen and with a pre-determined replacement timeline... it just doesn't have any ring of truth or sense to it if you ask me. The team drafted a potential successor to their HoF QB with three years left on his contract precisely because it creates options for the team, not because it sets a path for the team. This offseason, in which they retained Rodgers against his wishes, proves that. If the team were attempting to set in motion a clear path to replacement, they had the opportunity to take it, and they did not. If the team was trying to set in motion a clear path to replacement, they could have chosen not to restructure Rodgers' contract to push money out into future years and increase dead money if he leaves mere months before making the draft pick. But they did.

The actual actions the Packers have taken--starting with the Rodgers restructure, including keeping TBLS, and then bringing Rodgers back after last offseason when he wanted to force their hand--indicate a fluid situation dependent on the real-time results of Jordan Love. Nothing in the team's actual actions has indicated even remotely a path-dependent outcome to this. It's only Rodgers who seems assured of a pre-determined outcome which he is aiming to change. The fact that he believed that he did change it ("threw a wrench in their plans") only goes to prove that the circumstance is changeable at any given time. We're in a choose-your-own-adventure book, not a novel.

[bud fox]

If Rodgers hasn't signed an extension before the start of next season then he is gone.

[bud fox]

But we took a guy knowing he had elite physical talent but needed a LOT of work on the fundamentals and the mental aspect, AND we prepped him on a schedule knowing we had a Hall of Fame QB signed for 3 more years. They made him the 3rd stringer, focused on fundamentals and professional preparation, and let him sit and learn.

When Rodgers said he might not return, we had to suddenly hurry up and try to get him ready to start. ALL observers said he was much much better in training camp season 2 than season 1, so the learning helped. But it was also immediately clear that he was not fundamentally sound yet and wasn't ready to start. That might mean he'll never be ready to start at a high level; it might not mean that. Plenty of QBs--including Rodgers--have had rough outings in years 1 and 2 and gone on to be stars. Personally, I want to figure out what the Bills did with Josh Allen to get him from a 59% passer to a 69% passer between years 2 and 3. That type of accuracy improvement is nearly unprecedented.

I like your overall thoughts on refraining from making early judgments on Love but I gotta disagree with your assertion of the 3yr timeline thing.

The Packers had every intention of moving on from TBLS thus making Love the direct backup to Rodgers. To me, that says they felt he was at a progression level commensurate to that of stepping in when called upon to competently run the offense. I don’t think the Packers had to suddenly ramp up Love’s training regimen when Rodgers made his dissatisfaction publicly known. I think the Packers simply misjudged how far along Love was based upon practice snaps and the KC game was probably a wake up call to them.

I think Love's progression in roster status was more of a political move.

No GM is going to have there first round QB sit third string for 2 years. Investment is too big.