Packers Huddle

Bakh should take notes

That damn blogger Andy Herman with some thoughts...

BF004 wrote: ↑

24 Jul 2023 14:13

I saw that driving home from Foo Fighters. I was already smiling but my smile got a little bigger.

BF004 wrote: ↑

24 Jul 2023 14:13

Saw that had gone up about a week ago.

He sig is "J <3 #10" haha, awesome.

Kind of a missed opportunity for some sort of "love" pun

So I've been thinking about the bars of comparison for Love.

He is not a rookie. But he is a first time starter. His 3 years on the bench developing matter (immensely) especially because that was the scouting report on him coming out: great arm talent, bad habits, needs a lot of work on fundamentals tied to accuracy and decision making. For him, taking time was part of the equation, like it should be for a guy like Levis or Richardson.

But he's also not a guy making a 2nd/3rd-year jump after getting a sense for the nuances of the game, like Josh Allen did after playing relatively mediocre football for his rookie and sophomore year. And he's not banging down the door with his play so hard you trade the starter after one year like Mahomes was.

So in the vein of the thread: expectations and comparison

Here are guys whose play I think we can compare to Love's this year and hope to see him toward the top of this spectrum rather than the middle or bottom...

1. Justin Fields. March 5, 1999 (24 y.o.)

This one is just too obvious. We have to compare. Love is in his 4th season, while Fields is in his 3rd. Fields has started for two years while Love has started none. I remember thinking at one point that Jordan Love in an extremely small sample was producing at a similar level as Fields was in a large sample (not play style necessarily, but production). So if we just start with the premise that Love needed an extra year of development and then put them on the same, albeit differently-constructed developmental path, they should be compared this year. And of course, Packers-Bears.

2. Kyle Trask. March 6, 1998 (25 y.o.)

Don't laugh. I truly hope and genuinely think Love is the better player. But Trask was drafted in the 2nd round and has sat for 2 years learning behind Tom Brady. We have VERY few examples of guys drafted relatively early and sitting behind HoFers for multiple years to start their careers. So we're going to compare.

Naturally, Trask was drafted 64th 2 years ago and Love was drafted 26th 3 years ago. But Trask's best college season was better than Love's best college season, statistically. So if we're going to take the whole "developed under a HoF player" narrative seriously, we should also look and see what happens in Tampa. Of course, Trask might not even beat out Baker Mayfield

3. Kenny Pickett. June 6, 1998 (25 y.o.)

Pickett was drafted last year in the first round, ahead of where Love was drafted. It was a weak QB class but theoretically, Pickett should be about as good or slightly better than Love coming into the league. Pickett's path to playing time was much more conventional, though. Last year was his rookie year (even though he is 4 months older than Love). He started out behind a veteran starter, but came into game action in week 4. He played as the starter the rest of the season absent concussions.

Pickett will now be in his first year entering the season as the fulltime starter, just like Love. They're close in age, close in draft stock, and both have a variety of young weapons (though some more proven in Pittsburgh).

4. Desmond Ridder August 31, 1999 (24 y.o. in two weeks)

Sort of between Trask and Pickett here... Less time in the league (2nd year). More time as a starter (4 weeks). He's entering the season as the expected starter and was not given significant competition (though Heineke is a fan favorite wherever he goes). Ridder, like Love, was viewed as a first round pick earlier in his career, but never took that next step into stardom and settled into the mid-second round.

The Falcons have an established offensive system and have been stocking up on young weapons while trying to revamp the OL. Ridder is another person on this list I would hope that love is not compared to once the live action starts, but he's another unproven young QB entering his first year as an unquestioned starter who was drafted relatively high.

5. This Year's Ready Rookies

Up until now I have been trying to find guys who similarly are not rookies but have not had significant starting experience. But in this draft class, where Bryce Young and CJ Stroud were drafted in the top 2 overall in large part because they are considered READY and the full package, I will be watching how they perform this year in their first years as well. Unfortunately for these guy, they are both playing for teams that don't really seem to have offensive lines, which is classic rookie QB killer. But c'est la vie.

Worth noting that both of these guys will play the bulk of their seasons aged 22 (Stroud turns 22 in October). Love will be 24/25 this season, so unlike some of the guys drafted after him who were a little older than him and thus are similar in age right now as we compare, these two are young draftees like Love was.


6. His Own Draft Class, pre-breakout

I'm bending the rules here because there are no rules and/or I made them up anyway. But I want to look at a couple guys--namely Tua and Hurts--in their second years. This is a way to say "ok, who were his draft class peers. And what did they look like when they were neither rookies nor veterans?" One year of experience from seasons in which neither began as starters but entered year 2 as the expected and relied-upon starters was my compromise. So let's look at how those two did.
7. Aspirational - Young First-Year Starters

I obviously cherry-picked the 2020 QB class, leaving out Burrow and Herbert at the top. And guys who waited before starting, leaving out Mahomes at the tippity top. AND OF COURSE... 2008 Aaron Rodgers. That could be its own number, but, umm, I think we can count him here

So let's just look at what happens when players surprise and break the mold.
So there-in lies the full spectrum of comparisons I will be watching for this year.

From current seasons as they play out: Fields, Trask, Pickett, Ridder, Young, and Stroud
To past seasons as they played out: Tua, Hurts, Burrow, Herbert, and Mahomes.

Like I said, my hope is that Love is closer to the top of that spectrum than to the bottom.

His pro career trajectory will approximate Big Ben's.

Labrev wrote: ↑

13 Aug 2023 13:17

His pro career trajectory will approximate Big Ben's.

I think you meant exceed tb12

BF004 wrote: ↑

13 Aug 2023 15:59

Labrev wrote: ↑

13 Aug 2023 13:17

His pro career trajectory will approximate Big Ben's.

I think you meant exceed tb12

No, that would be unrealistic.

After these two PS games, I am really liking the throwing motion of Love. He is clearly at ease when he throws, at least from a clean pocket.

Me thinks the game is slowing down nicely for him.

Just curious if the media talking heads have changed their narrative on Love over the past week or so? I've been abroad and haven't been keeping up much on national reporting.

APB wrote: ↑

21 Aug 2023 02:48

Just curious if the media talking heads have changed their narrative on Love over the past week or so? I've been abroad and haven't been keeping up much on national reporting.

Not really the media at large has been quite good with large.

I also think that's because the media want to build him up for the bigger headlines in the event they can bring him down.

Scott4Pack wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2023 17:11

After these two PS games, I am really liking the throwing motion of Love. He is clearly at ease when he throws, at least from a clean pocket.

Me thinks the game is slowing down nicely for him.

I'd like to see some more touch. Right now he's trying to throw everything through a brick wall, but it's working so no big complaints.

bud fox wrote: ↑

21 Aug 2023 04:20

APB wrote: ↑

21 Aug 2023 02:48

Just curious if the media talking heads have changed their narrative on Love over the past week or so? I've been abroad and haven't been keeping up much on national reporting.

Not really the media at large has been quite good with large.

I also think that's because the media want to build him up for the bigger headlines in the event they can bring him down.

I disagree with this entirely.

I think the national media/talk shows (based primarily on ESPN's "Get Up" and NFL Network's "Good Morning Football"... with a smattering of ESPN's "NFL Live" and NFL Network's "NFL Total Access") were probably 65/35 of the opinion that love won't be that good right away; Packers fans needed to embrace lower expectations; no one can replace Rodgers; Love doesn't have enough help/support to succeed" storylines. There were always guys, Mike Greenberg was one of them; Dan Orlovsky was one of them--who were saying "he might be better this year than a lot of us are thinking" in that time period.

Family Night is when the 65/35 seemed to shift toward a "both sides" where the national guys were talking to media guys who were there and hearing some people say he looked bad and some people say he looked good, and saying, basically, he flashes but he's not ready.

The two weeks of preseason, I'd say the national media storylines has shifted more the other way, 70/30 toward "The NFC North is wide open and if the Packers can get an average QB season out of Love, they're in good shape... and Love looks poised to do that" with all the regular "it's preseason" caveats.

This morning the panel on Good Morning Football discussed if there's more pressure this season on Love or Fields, and while 3 of the 4 said it's on Love, they said it's because he will be compared to a still-playing Aaron Rodgers AND to his peers AND by a fan base that has almost no experience with poor QB play and won't know how to handle the lumps if/when they come....

...while Fields will be simply expected to step forward from last year and will be compared to the absolute talent desert the Bears have faced at the QB position and with a fan base that doesn't even know what great QB play looks like so might be thrilled with above average play and think it's great.

Of course the ONE dissenter in that conversation is Bears fan and Chicago-area native Kyle Brandt who explained to the rest of the panel that if Fields sucks, Chicago will implode because he is their first real hope in a while and they have been given every reason to believe that this time will be different and that the Bears haven't had a 1st-team All-Pro QB since 1950 and all of the team and fan's hopes and dreams are counting on Fields being the one to break that curse.

So anyway, the narratives are cutting both ways, but Love is gaining a lot of fans and taking a lot of fence-sitting negative leaning analysis to fence-sitting positive-leaning analysis.

It’s starting to heat up.

Wonder if golf cart driver Bakh still thinks this is a rebuilding year

Drj820 wrote: ↑

21 Aug 2023 20:27

Wonder if golf cart driver Bakh still thinks this is a rebuilding year

This is a rebuilding year whether Love is good or not. Next it’s fine to say they’re in the conversation. This year I expect them to show some fight and competition but this is not a SB contending team in the slightest.

More buy-in on Love: