Between Green Bay Packers country and most of the rest of the world, there exists one of the NFL's strangest divides. Jordan Love is at the center of it, and while Packers fans point to data that suggest he is, in fact, elite, the national media somehow persists in favoring quarterbacks he objectively outperforms.
Take it or leave it, that's not just homerism. It's really quite a fascinating double standard.
One flaw Packers fans can admit Love still has is his propensity, every so often, to chuck the old prolate spheroid in harm's way. Even as he has progressed drastically in nearly every other area, that shortcoming remains.
Jordan Love passing 2023/2024 vs 2025. pic.twitter.com/PMQ6r4NQVy
— Mark Oldacres (@MarkOldacres) June 17, 2026
Whether or not it results in interceptions (and Love threw only six last year), as long as he's still throwing up 50-50s downfield, critics will have ammunition to work with. It's Love's job to take that material away, and there's no time like the present.
Jordan Love has one task to accomplish to leave critics' quiver empty
Notably, it's only on deep throws that Love still struggles. In every other area of the field, he is well above average or elite.
Also worth observing: the only area he hasn't greened out on the entire grid is his big-play percentage on intermediate throws. Everything there suggests an MVP-caliber quarterback, something backed up by multiple other metrics, like QBR and EPA per play, from last season.
Everything except, of course, that nagging yellow bar near the bottom. Arguably Love's most agonizing interception, in Week 3 against the Cleveland Browns, wasn't a deep throw. It was on a short slant over the middle where Love tried to squeeze the ball into tight coverage when he didn't have to. That deflected pick turned into a Packers loss.
Then again, his turnover-worthy play rate everywhere except on deep throws is a healthy green. Contrary to a favorite criticism, Love generally plays mistake-free football. He didn't in the Browns game, but it's also not fair to use that play as indicating a significant flaw. His precision on short and medium throws isn't an issue.
The Packers' other early-season loss, before the wheels came off and no one was keeping track, provides a better example of how Love can avoid needless miscues.
That 16-13 defeat to the Carolina Panthers doesn't happen without Love's ill-timed pick in the third quarter, in a close game where he had more to lose than gain by taking a risky shot downfield. Part of the issue, obviously, is one of accuracy and precision, but simply avoiding those decisions will do a lot to green out that stubborn area on the chart.
On that note, meet the EPA per play leaders of 2025: Drake Maye, then Love, then MVP Matthew Stafford and Josh Allen. How about QBR? Maye, Brock Purdy (in nine games), Love, Stafford.
That's not cherry-picking. It's not cooking the books. It's making note of numbers that, applied to seemingly any other quarterback, are taken at face value, without so much as a grain of salt.
Weeding out the occasional misguided moonball will leave precious little substance for the haters to harp on.
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