Jordan Love went into today’s road game against the Rams in the hope of avoiding the ignominy of opening the season 0-3 as the $220 million starting quarterback, while his unknown backup, Malik Willis, won both of his starts. That the Packers pulled out a 24-19 win was mostly due to Matthew Stafford being Matthew Stafford; outside the Super Bowl team he inherited from Jared Goff, he does what he usually does—get the team close to a scoring opportunity, and more often than not fails. Two turnovers and two loss on downs in Packer territory—including a first-and-goal opportunity—was been-there, done-that for the Packer defense. Stafford threw one TD pass on 45 throws; this season through five games, he has thrown just 3 TD passes on 175 pass attempts.
Should the Rams have won this game and sent Love to an 0-3 start, losing by just a touchdown? The only way they could have won is if the Packers gave it way, and not that they didn’t try in fourth quarter; on their two possessions of the quarter, a drive into Rams territory was aborted on a pass that netted minus-9 yards, and after the Rams scored to make it a one-score ballgame, Love and the Packers managed to burn-up all of 20 seconds off the clock to give the Rams a shot at winning the game still with 3 minutes to play. Stafford got the Rams into Packer territory, but a sack and the lack of big-play ability we’ve seen before when Stafford was playing with Lions snuffed out Love’s opportunity for ignominy.
In between an impressive 96-yard drive aided by a 53-yard pass to Jayden Reed that ended with Josh Jacobs finally scoring a touchdown from one-yard out, and then Tucker Kraft barreling his way 66 yards on a pass caught at midfield for a touchdown, Love produced one of those plays a $220 million dollar quarterback is not supposed to make, scrambling in his own end zone and tossing a ball up in the air for an easy 4-yard pick-6 by the Rams Jaylen McCollough that briefly gave the Rams the lead at 13-7. But Brayden Narverson surprised by making a 46-yard field goal attempt, and Kraft caught not one, but two TD passes in the third quarter, following-up his 66-yarder with a 7-yard strike from Love.
Love wasn’t great in this game after throwing for a career high in yards last week (not that he was “great” throwing 3 INTs in the loss against the Vikings). Outside of his two long completions, he was just 13 of 24 for 105 yards. He was sacked twice, but otherwise suffered only three quarterback hits (compared to 10 hits and 3 sacks against Stafford), so it wasn’t as if Love was enduring a lot of “pressure” in the game. There was talk pregame about his injury status, but it was just talk; all that money and “pride” has to play a role. At least Love finally has a win under his belt—five games into the season.
Next time the
Packers play the Cardinals, who “upset” a 49ers team with its playmakers on the
sidelines. This is a team that was blown-out by the Commanders 42-14, yet also crushed this same
Rams team 41-10. Kyler Murray is one those quarterbacks who had one great
season in college that hasn’t exactly translated in the pro-level. He was a
high school player of the year in 2014, but didn’t do much in his first two years
of college before wowing people with an NCAA record 11.6 yards per pass attempt in
a season with Oklahoma in 2018, and becoming the first college quarterback to throw for more than 4,000 yards and rushing for 1,000.
But with the Cardinals, despite putting numbers on the stat sheet that make him at least look competent, on the field he’s been fairly ordinary, a 30-39 record as a
starter and one playoff game. However, a quarterback who at least manages to be a “game
manager” who keeps his turnovers at a manageable level is worth keeping around in
the “hope” he takes his game to the next level—which Murray has not necessarily
shown in his last two injury-shortened seasons. The Packers play at home, so this should be a winnable game.
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