Knee and groin injuries were a big problem for Jordan Love early in the season. He missed two games and was somewhat limited for several others. In part, that’s a reasonable explanation to why he was worse than he had been in 2023, his first season as a full-time starter.
After the bye, Love and head coach Matt LaFleur said the focus would be on limiting mistakes without losing Love’s inherent aggressiveness. So far, the plan has come into fruition, and that’s the big reason why the Packers have played their best football lately.
From weeks 11 to 13, after the Packers’ bye week, Jordan Love is 2nd in EPA/play, 3rd in success rate, 6th in completion percentage over expectation, and 8th in air yards.
Love improved from 1.5 to 1.66 in touchdowns per game and from 1.42 to 0.33 interceptions per game.
Curiously enough, though, Love’s turnover-worthy play rate according to PFF went up from 3.3% between weeks 1 to 10 to 3.8% in weeks 11 to 13. It’s a smaller sample size, for sure, but it also shows that Love’s interceptions early on were disproportionately bad compared to his turnover-worthy play rate. His interception unluck is regressing to the mean.
But it’s not only luck. Against the Miami Dolphins, for example, Love had his second game of the season without any turnover-worthy play. It was the first game in 2024 without a turnover-worthy play and without an interception at the same time.
“The biggest thing starts with just taking care of the ball. That’s something that I’ve been focusing on, I’ve just tried to do a better job, because it starts there,” Love said after the win over the Dolphins about his recent improvement. “Not putting our defense in bad positions and easy on the other team. Just going out there and finding completions, getting the ball in the playmakers’ hands. You see these guys, once they catch the ball, they’re making some big-time YAC (yards after the catch). That’s the key to our offense. My job is to continue to focus on being great keeping taking care of the ball.”
Last year, Jordan Love threw 11 interceptions in the regular season. He reached that number through eight games in 2024, but he doesn’t intend to go beyond that any time soon.
For Matt LaFleur, the reason for Love’s growth is related to his footwork.
“The thing that we stressed the most is just playing with good fundamentals. Reading with your feet. He’s done it in practice, he’s been very conscious of doing that,” LaFleur stressed. “Tom (Clements) does a great job with our quarterbacks, just giving them the coaching points that they need. But it’s ultimately up to the player to take it. And I think he’s taken it to heart. He Works extremely hard, and I think he’s playing his best ball right now, I really do.”
It doesn’t matter how you view it, the Detroit Lions have had one of the top defenses in football. But they are 2nd in EPA/play, and go down to 4th excluding turnovers. If there’s a way to beat them, it goes through avoiding mistakes.
But avoiding mistakes is not a plan, it’s just hope. The path to make it happen is to balance when to be aggressive and when to be careful with the ball.
“I think he’s done a great job of taking what’s there, taking the checkdowns when they’re there, or taking the shot when they’re there,” LaFleur added about Love. “He’s moving around the pocket really well, our o-line is doing a pretty good job, but when it’s not perfect upfront, he’s able to buy time or get out of harm’s way and get rid of the football. That’s critical for us.”
Only two quarterbacks have a smaller than 10% rate of pressures turned into sacks, Jordan Love (9.1%) and Josh Allen (9.8%). When Love is healthy, it’s even easier for him to escape pressure — which is his best trait. And if he can be smart with his throws, the Packers offense can finally reach its ceiling.