‘Go be great’: Jordan Love leads the Packers on a fourth-quarter comeback against the Chargers, emphasizing recent growth
GREEN BAY – The scenes from these past nine starts scrolled through Jordan Love’s mind as he broke the huddle for another potential comeback drive in Sunday’s fourth quarter. Most of the memories were bad. The Green Bay Packers have been here before, so many times. Too many times.
Four losses this season by a combined 11 points. Each coming with a chance to mount a fourth-quarter drive to take the lead. This season has been the same horror film on replay, one missed opportunity bleeding into the next. Love thought of those as he took his first snap of Sunday’s signature drive with 5 minutes, 24 seconds left on the clock.
“For me personally,” Love said, “that’s always in the back of my head. The past experiences that we’ve had. Being in this situation and not capitalizing. So our message was just to go finish, go find a way and go be great. I think we did that.”
Whatever the next 3 minutes meant in the long term, the six plays for 75 yards and game-winning score, only time will tell. But the Packers finally flipped the script in a 23-20 victory against the Los Angeles Chargers, another game that went down to the wire in a season full of them. In the short term, Love’s comeback drive was a punctuation of gradual improvement over the past few weeks.
The Packers have felt growth slowly over this third month of their season. A week ago in Pittsburgh, Matt LaFleur vowed a breakthrough was coming, if only his young team and bombarded coaching staff stuck with their process. The breakthrough came on the final play of their game-winning drive Sunday, a 24-yard touchdown to Romeo Doubs.
Off the snap, Doubs feigned an underneath route before turning on his speed. He sprinted past flat-footed cornerback Michael Davis, racing to the left corner of the end zone. Love had an open receiver. He didn’t miss. His pass floated over Davis, allowing Doubs to leap and catch it.
“Gotta give Rome a ton of credit,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “We preach aggressive hands, and he went up and there was definitely a mentality, and you could see it right there. He went and snatched that ball.”
It was Doubs’ seventh touchdown catch this season, his fourth in the past five games, signifying the type of growth the Packers hoped for their second-year receiver. For Love, it was the highlight of a day he outplayed Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert for four quarters.
As Love navigates this first season as the Packers starter, there are boxes he must check. Love already had a fourth-quarter comeback Week 3 against the New Orleans Saints. What he hadn’t done yet was stand toe-to-toe with an elite NFL quarterback and exit as the winner. Herbert was drafted sixth overall in 2020, the same draft class the Packers selected Love. For all the Chargers’ struggles this season, he remains a franchise quarterback by every definition. Herbert showed that again Sunday, a rare positive for a sinking team, completing 21-of-36 passes for 260 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 99.3 rating.
Love never wilted under the pressure of carrying his team on a day he needed to be foundational. Not just for the quarterback matchup, but injuries to Aaron Jones (knee) and Emanuel Wilson (dislocated shoulder) that left the Packers with AJ Dillon as their lone running back. The Chargers knew Love was going to throw the football Sunday, because he had no other choice.
His 40 passes were one shy of a season high. He completed 67.5% for a season-high 322 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 108.5 rating.
“Really proud of Jordan,” LaFleur said. “Just the poise that he showed, the leadership that he showed. He made some big-time plays.”
The Packers have been getting big-time plays from their quarterback for a few games now. Love’s arm talent is apparent. For three straight weeks, he has averaged at least 7.2 yards per pass. Love had a season-high 289 passing yards a week ago in Pittsburgh. He followed that with not only his first career 300-yard game Sunday, but the Packers’ first game with 300 passing yards since Aaron Rodgers posted 341 against the Chicago Bears on Dec. 12, 2021, snapping a 30-game drought.
Love said he was unaware of the 300-yard drought entering Sunday. He attributed it to not only his receivers having a big day, but also his offensive line for holding up. While Love’s supporting cast continued to show its development, his protection was an issue against a talented Chargers defensive front that includes Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack. Love was sacked three times, but he never flinched.
His best game in the NFL was the foundation for the Packers’ highest scoring total since Week 2.
“There’s definitely a lot of learning,” Love said. “Obviously, we’re a young offense. We’re building. We’re just continuing to stack days. But it’s so much learning that goes into it behind the scenes. The guys are just continuing to work every day, continuing to grow and learn from every rep, mistakes, things like that, that happen on the field. Just store that information, and learn and grow as players.
“I like the trajectory the offense is going right now for sure.”
There is still much to learn. After their game-winning drive, the Packers had a chance to close out Sunday with the football. LaFleur called three straight running plays, forcing the Chargers to call their timeouts, but also wilting when a first down would have sealed a win.
The final run came on third-and-5, a situation that begged for LaFleur to keep the football in his quarterback’s hands. LaFleur wanted to burn the Chargers final timeout. He called a run play that wasn’t in the Packers game plan this week, LaFleur said, on a hunch the Chargers defense might give an ideal look. He told Love to call timeout if the look didn’t match his play call. As it became clear Love was going to take the snap, LaFleur said he considered calling a timeout from the sideline.
A timeout never was called. Dillon got 2 yards on his final carry. The Chargers got one final possession from their 20-yard line with 1:27 left. LaFleur put the blame on himself, saying it asked too much of Love to run the entire operation at the line of scrimmage.
“That was on me,” LaFleur said. “First of all, I shouldn’t have put our quarterback in that situation. So call the play. I said, ‘If we don’t get the look, call timeout.’ I almost popped the timeout. I shouldn’t put him in that situation. That’s on me. I’m not proud of that. Certainly, quite frankly, I’m embarrassed by it, just the conservativeness of that. Just wanted to take a look. If we had the play, we were going to run it, and we didn’t get the look. So I’ve just got to be better in that situation and pop the timeout. I think that’s too much to put on his plate at this point in time, where it wasn’t even something in the game plan. It was a bad deal.”
It isn’t surprising Love remains something less than a finished product after 10 games. His growth is clear. In his past three games, Love has completed 64.1% of his 106 passes for 839 yards, five touchdowns, two interceptions and a 96.4 passer rating. In his three games before that, Love completed 59.8% of his 102 passes for 591 yards, three touchdowns, six interceptions and a 61.3 rating.
For it to matter long term, Love must continue his upward trajectory. His two toughest tests of the season are upcoming, a short-week trip to Detroit on Thanksgiving followed by a home game against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. After Love’s first career fourth-quarter comeback Week 3 against the New Orleans Saints, the Packers lost their next four games.
They need to find another win in the next month, or this team and quarterback will be back where it was a few weeks ago, facing the same doubts about the future.
“As an offense especially,” Love said, “you want to keep seeing the growth, and that’s what we’ve been seeing. But the main goal is winning the game. Last week, we came up unsuccessful, so I think just to see how guys bounced back this week, stayed together, continued to work and grind, obviously the hard work is going to pay off. It paid off today.”