Jordan Love will begin his tenure as Green Bay’s starting quarterback against the Bears on Sept. 10 after gaining some valuable experience through preseason play.
Love played — and threw a touchdown — in each of Green Bay’s three exhibition games. He finished the preseason 21-of-33 for 193 yards with three touchdowns, good for a 109.8 passer rating.
On Wednesday, General Manager Brian Gutekunst said it was good to see Love command the offense.
“There’s things that not everybody sees but little mistakes that I think he’s going to really grow from,” Gutekunst said in his press conference. “And then there’s things that maybe didn’t affect the play. And there’s successes that he had, too, that gives him confidence to move forward. So, I think it was just really, really good.
“When you put those guys out there, sometimes you’re a little bit — we haven’t done that a lot around here. But I think it was such an important thing to get out of it clean where he played really well, I think that was a real benefit to our offense. So, I’m excited about it. But I don’t know if I really learned a ton. I think it was just really good for him and our offense.”
As the Packers now turn to the regular season and the inevitable ups and downs that come with it, Gutekunst described Love as a “cool customer” whose even-keel approach should serve him well.
But there is still an element of the unknown with Love, even as he’s going into his fourth pro season after Green Bay traded up to select him at No. 26 overall in 2020.
“I think there’s certain things you see and you see him grow and you say, ‘OK, he handles much differently than maybe he did a year ago, two years ago,’” Gutekunst said. “But the quarterback position, I would argue, is one of the hardest, if not the hardest position to play in all of team sports. I’ve only been through it the one time, seeing it up close when we went from Brett [Favre] to Aaron [Rodgers]. But even when they’re able to go out there and perform at a high level, to be able to perform at a high level and then to learn how to win — there’s time that that takes. I think when Aaron went into his first two years, I think midway through that second year, we were like 10-14 or something like that. So, it just takes a little bit of time.
“But at the same time, he’s done some things over the past year and a half that allows us [to say] no matter what happens within a game, he’s going to be able to handle it and move forward — which I think is a big thing. We’re excited about it. But until you get into the regular season, that’s a whole different ballgame.”
