Packers Huddle

It's scarcity. There are not ever 32 starting-caliber QBs in the NFL at a time, and teams that need one will throw a lot of resources at getting them, so if you have one, you need to pay a pretty penny to keep them. A backup QB can come in and pull off an upset, even shine for a stretch of games, but not give you a good whole season. Brock Purdy is a rarity, most are more like Davis Mills.

Wait a few more weeks on Browning let's see how he does. It takes a few weeks for defenses to scheme against new QBs.
I would be surprised if he continued the level of success he had last night through the end of the season.

Also, as NCF alluded to, there is a lack of top tier QB play right now.

Yes, Love has played great. Yes, he will get paid.

But it should not surprise anyone that Love looking great and Watson being healthy happens at the same time.

Loves been looking good, damn good and it doesn't matter who is catching the ball, Reed is our leading receiver, Wicks, Musgrave, Doubs have all played well, finally Watson has a good game, but again is in health protocol with another hammy, Watson so far has been a disappointment with all the injuries.

&%$@

Against 3 pretty good teams, without your two highest paid offensive players (Bak and Jones).

Papa John wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 09:41

This contract talk does beg the age old question- is it still really worth it to award QB's with the huge contracts? This doesn't have as much to do with Love and his level of play, but more so with the way that the league is trending. Last night I just watched Burrow's backup come in and beat a very good Jaguars team. That is one example, but there are more than a few others like it recently. In this NFL where teams are not allowed to play pass defense, we are seeing younger QB's come in and be effective almost immediately. Many of these kids are the products of years of private coaching and have already taken tons of snaps by the time they play their first NFL game. I think that rookie QB's today are more NFL ready than rookie QB's ever have been in any era. Obviously it depends on the money, but does any team want to be financially wedded to a guy anymore or is that becoming a thing of the past?

I think that Cincy backup last night was more an outlier performance than an indication of how easy it's become to excel at QB in today's NFL. Hell, look no further than his performance last week to refute your argument. Also take a wider look around the league at struggling NFL teams and I'd bet in most cases it's because they have a struggling QB, whether it be a starter or backup to the injured starter.

Sure, guys like Stroud come into the league every year and excel. Those guys typically go at the top of the draft, though, and the talent pool dries up in a hurry once you're out of the top 10 picks. Jake Browning, last night's hero, may one day develop into a decent starter but my money says he's back to struggling in short order.

So in short, yes it's worth it.

APB wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 11:01

Papa John wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 09:41

This contract talk does beg the age old question- is it still really worth it to award QB's with the huge contracts? This doesn't have as much to do with Love and his level of play, but more so with the way that the league is trending. Last night I just watched Burrow's backup come in and beat a very good Jaguars team. That is one example, but there are more than a few others like it recently. In this NFL where teams are not allowed to play pass defense, we are seeing younger QB's come in and be effective almost immediately. Many of these kids are the products of years of private coaching and have already taken tons of snaps by the time they play their first NFL game. I think that rookie QB's today are more NFL ready than rookie QB's ever have been in any era. Obviously it depends on the money, but does any team want to be financially wedded to a guy anymore or is that becoming a thing of the past?

I think that Cincy backup last night was more an outlier performance than an indication of how easy it's become to excel at QB in today's NFL. Hell, look no further than his performance last week to refute your argument. Also take a wider look around the league at struggling NFL teams and I'd bet in most cases it's because they have a struggling QB, whether it be a starter or backup to the injured starter.

Sure, guys like Stroud come into the league every year and excel. Those guys typically go at the top of the draft, though, and the talent pool dries up in a hurry once you're out of the top 10 picks. Jake Browning, last night's hero, may one day develop into a decent starter but my money says he's back to struggling in short order.

So in short, yes it's worth it.

I would tend to agree here. Ultimately, the goal is to win a championship, and just go ahead and look at the last 10 years:

22 - Mahomes
21 - Stafford
20 - Brady
19 - Mahomes
18 - Brady
17 - Foles (outlier for sure but had an awesome post season)
16 - Brady
15 - Manning
14 - Brady
13 - Wilson

All except for Foles are Franchise QB's. Sure, other factors played in like awesome defense too. All about finding the balance, but Super Bowl victories with mid tier QB's are usually pretty rare or that mid tier QB happens to get hot for a post season, but normally doesn't sustain it in future seasons (see Foles, Flacco, Eli as examples).

APB wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 11:01

So in short, yes it's worth it.

Indeed.

Andrew Brandt commented about the incredible growth in QB pay- some fans worry that it handicaps team building
But he said " It doesn't matter how much you pay your QB, so long as he plays to that level"

Top QB play is worth top QB pay. The new TV deals are just hitting the cap and the gambling cash comes next.
Cap growth will once again outstrip fans ability to keep up. Love can't sign a new contract until May of 2024, so the next round of QB deals in March will boost his totals come May.

Media way overplaying the “Love was atrocious to start the year and now all of a sudden he’s good” angle. Love was good to start the year, struggled in the 2nd quarter of the year along with the rest of the team, and is now playing his best ball.

He has never been “awful” this year

The more you pay a QB the better you need to draft. If that money is being alotted to a single position you need to not only draft well but get value from those picks. You need to rely on rookies playing valuable snaps. I think we failed in both those departments on our last window. We werent drafting well enough and on top of that we had a ton of players on rookie contracts, even at the premium positions not in starting roles.

Drj820 wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 11:29

Media way overplaying the “Love was atrocious to start the year and now all of a sudden he’s good” angle. Love was good to start the year, struggled in the 2nd quarter of the year along with the rest of the team, and is now playing his best ball.

He has never been “awful” this year

exactly, the team may have looked awful because of some blunders, but by and large, he looked OK. Like a young QB learning to play in the NFL with a bunch of other guys trying to find their way. He made some plays, some plays were missed. With so much else around him not going well either, it's easy to pin it on him.

But the media likes controversy and the most extreme angles at everything, so it's not surprising they're beating this drum.

He looked good for three weeks, then he had a tougher time and his play varied between decent and poor.

Our O had issues as a unit: some of our WRs/OL got banged up, and MLF had some bad gameplans (i.e. did not properly account for guys like Hutchinson and Crosby).

And I think opposing teams got a better read on Love and found ways to make it harder for him, it happens to all QBs; the true test is overcoming it. His internal clock was an issue. He got used to the long clean pockets, was not ready for good pass-rushing teams, and again, MLF's gameplan did him no favors against them. Then for a few games he would panic too soon. He needed to get better sense pressure and/or get the ball out sooner. Huge improvement here.

It also sounds like they have been better personalizing the offense to what Love likes over the course of the season.

musclestang wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 15:17

Drj820 wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 11:29

Media way overplaying the “Love was atrocious to start the year and now all of a sudden he’s good” angle. Love was good to start the year, struggled in the 2nd quarter of the year along with the rest of the team, and is now playing his best ball.

He has never been “awful” this year

exactly, the team may have looked awful because of some blunders, but by and large, he looked OK. Like a young QB learning to play in the NFL with a bunch of other guys trying to find their way. He made some plays, some plays were missed. With so much else around him not going well either, it's easy to pin it on him.

But the media likes controversy and the most extreme angles at everything, so it's not surprising they're beating this drum.

Maybe its just word play. But, there were times he was pretty bad. Eye test, statistically or scoreboard or wins and losses he was bad? not good? However you want to state it. Not all his fault nor is the improvement just him. I tend to be as reactionary as anyone here, so I am trying not to be now. What happens if the Packers/Love look like garbage against the Giants, Panthers Etc....?

My thoughts are always such a rollercoaster all the time. Coming out of the preseason and after the 1st bears game I was convinced 11-6 was attainable. Then a horrid stretch I was convinced we could Vie for the #1 draft pick overall...lol. Now...I am more positive than negative, but damn. Sometimes I am so wrong.

I don't think it was necessarily Love being bad as it was the entire offense out of sync. The OL was missing blocks and commiting penalties, the young WRs were running bad routes, and MLF was learning what plays worked best for this group. Love started trying to do too much and his INTs increased.

Even if he never becomes a guy who can carry the team through tough times, it doesn't mean he can't lead us to the Super Bowl in the future.

I think that anytime somebody says that Love's play at any time this season was poor doesn't consider the level of QB play across the league.

Love has had bad plays. But his overall play all year has been fine. We don't measure QB play by a game by game situation. Evaluation comes across the entire season. And Love is coming up very well on that. His worse games have not been bad by any standard that I'd use. His play depends upon other people performing, just like their play depends upon his.

Love isn't in top tier yet. But he has exceeded expectations at this point. I've been positive on him all season. He has the skills and he has put in the work. Now we're seeing all of the fruit come out. And it's good fruit. It was good fruit before these last two games too.

NO matter how you wanna say it, He was at minimal very inconsistent, or at least the offense was, and he is the QB. For one half of football the offense was a joke and then, boom, they were good for a quarter or a half. He was Mac Jone and then, boom, he was Joe Burrow. They looked completely inept at times. I don't think I am making that up. Now he and the offense look really good. They have some consistency., OH and they are winning games....surprise surprise. Maybe it will be easier to handle if I say. He wasn't playing very good. Lets go with the passive aggressive take.

Labrev wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 10:15

Brock Purdy is a rarity, most are more like Davis Mills.

Purdy's abilities are overrated. He is 12 and 1 in games where his defense held the other team to 19 points or less. 3-2 in games where the other teams scored more than 20 points. He's only had to score more than 25 points to win twice. And he's 1-1. And if the only reason he may have the one win is because his defense intercepted the ball in overtime and ran it back for 56 yards. He had no say in the overtime victory. Once his defense goes away, and it most likely will, he will become a .640 QB if he's lucky. If Love was playing with the Number 2 defense in points in the league he would be doing a lot better.

There were very few QBs as inaccurate as Love was in the first half of the season. He was truly awful. A lot of people are saying it but I don’t know if we have ever seen this type of turn around in season. At least not in my lifetime.

He went from missing badly or making everything harder in his receivers to diming them and putting it only were they can get it and it’s consistent.

lupedafiasco wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 22:21

There were very few QBs as inaccurate as Love was in the first half of the season. He was truly awful. A lot of people are saying it but I don’t know if we have ever seen this type of turn around in season. At least not in my lifetime.

He went from missing badly or making everything harder in his receivers to diming them and putting it only were they can get it and it’s consistent.

The problem is can you blame the early season on inaccuracy or was it miscommunication? Given the last month the latter seems more likely.

Raptorman wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2023 22:20

Purdy's abilities are overrated.

Not sure what you exactly mean? Strong Arm? no. Tall and fast? no. Smartest QB ever? I have no idea.

However, since he took over for the niners he has been playing QB at a level that really is top 3 no matter how you slice it. Does he have better weapons than other teams and a great offensive minded coach? no question. Apparently Shannahan thinks fairly high of him considering he shipped his former high #1 pick to Dallas.

I don't want Purdy on the Packers. I want Jordon Love, But you sound like Nick Wright now on "first things first" ( who I find very entertaining). Yoop was trying to say the same thing during the niner/eagle game the other day until Purdy and company destroyed them in the second half.

Your only overrated if the masses think your better than you are. I suppose if you put him on Panthers he might look average at best.(poor Bryce Young), but that goes for basically everyone. All he does is kick ass at playing QB right now and winning with the team he has. If it was just defense that made a QB look good than the Browns QB's should resemble Joe Montana and Marino.

Anyway, I think he currently is playing at a fairly high level. Could he have a !@#$ poor game? Of course. I hope he does. Against us in the Playoffs hopefully. I should say us Packer fans