Jordan Love’s promising debut season as Packers starter ends with big mistakes vs. 49ers

SANTA CLARA, California − For the first time in a while, Jordan Love didn’t make the plays the Green Bay Packers needed to win.

The Packers’ first-year starting quarterback hardly deserves all the responsibility for the team’s 24-21 loss in the divisional round of the playoffs Saturday night in a game that was very much there for the taking against the heavily favored top-seeded team in the NFC.

The Packers, in fact, arguably lost this game in the first half because of a dropped potential pick-6 that hit safety Darnell Savage right in the hands and failed conversions on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 deep in 49ers’ territory. When you get chances like that against a team as good as the 49ers, you absolutely have to cash in.

Also, of course, there was rookie Anders Carlson missing yet another kick, this time a huge one in the fourth quarter that accounted for the final margin of defeat.

But Love, who had led the Packers to a huge playoff win at Dallas with an impeccable performance a week ago, made a couple big mistakes, too. The same quarterback who’d thrown only one interception in the previous nine games threw two Saturday night, and both were his fault: On one, he threw high and behind tight end Tucker Kraft over the middle and, the other, he with unnecessary desperation heaved a ball down the middle while on the run in the final minute when the Packers still had a chance to tie the game with a field goal.

On that last play, Love looked like the green, overmatched quarterback who lost at Kansas City in his first NFL start two years ago, not the poised player who’d performed at an MVP-candidate level the past two months.

"I forced it across the middle late, which is a mortal sin," Love lamented of his game-ending interception.

With that, the Packers’ surprising season ended abruptly, and a huge opportunity passed them by. The truth is they outplayed the 9½-point-favorite 49ers on this night. Coach Matt LaFleur, his players and coaching staff surely will be kicking themselves while the conference championships and Super Bowl unfold knowing they had the talent and late-season mojo to get to and perhaps win the title.

"It will sting for a while," Love said, "especially watching the games going forward."

No doubt, the Packers’ future is bright because of Love and his young corps of receivers and tight ends who came together in the final two months and, along with a healthy Aaron Jones, became one of the most-formidable offenses in the NFL. But chances like this, when everything comes together for a team, don’t happen often, and when they do, you better strike. Because even the brightest of futures can turn cloudy if key injuries hit, some players plateau, or if the team can’t maintain the hungry mind-set that propelled it late this season.

"There’s a lot of promise for the future," LaFleur said afterward, "but nothing’s guaranteed, and our guys are going to have to attack the offseason."

Love’s first season as a starter closed with his shakiest performance since his first-half-of-the-season struggles. His 72.4 rating was his lowest since the Packers’ loss at Pittsburgh in the ninth game of the season, and his 194 yards passing was his lowest since three weeks before that.

He also had his moments Saturday and, even in defeat, was a much different player than in October when the Packers endured a four-game losing streak. He was, for instance, better in the second half this season than Aaron Rodgers was in the second half of his first season as starter in 2008. But players always have to prove themselves in the NFL, and the question is where Love goes from here.

"In the offseason, I’ll go back," Love said, "watch the 2-minute drills to go win the game is an area that we didn’t capitalize on throughout the season. That’ll be an area to look at."

Said LaFleur: “He’s just got to use it as fuel to continue to get better. I think we saw so much growth throughout the course of the season, not only from just his ability to go out there and playing consistent winning football, but also I think he grew as a leader. And I think that’s very important, obviously, to be the franchise quarterback that I expect him to be for a long time around here.”

The Packers head into the offseason with their share of questions, too.

At the top of the list is whether defensive coordinator Joe Barry will be back after closing the season with four good games, including a solid performance Saturday holding the talented 49ers to 24 points. LaFleur will have to decide whether that trumps the up-and-down body of work over the past two seasons, or whether he’d prefer a whole new defensive scheme.

The Packers obviously will have to draft another kicker as well. Carlson showed resilience in bouncing back from misses all year, but 12 misses in the past 12 games is beyond the pale. That included six extra points and four field goals from less than 50 yards. It finally came back to bite the Packers on Saturday when he pulled a 41-yarder wide left that would have put the Packers up seven with 6 minutes, 18 seconds to play.

But as much as any of those questions, the Packers’ unexpected success and accelerated rebuild means one of their biggest challenges next season will be facing up to sky-high expectations. They were the NFL’s youngest team and, theoretically, Love and all those first- and second-year skill position players at receiver and tight end should improve a lot.

"We were talking to the guys with a championship mind-set," LaFleur said, "and they’ve got to put in championship work if we expect championship results."

This season now will go down just behind 2014 and 2021 as Super Bowl possibilities squandered. The difference is, this is a young team and a young quarterback who still have a lot to learn. Maybe the moment, facing the NFL’s most-talented team, was just a tad too big for them in the end, even if they outplayed the 49ers overall.

The next few seasons will reveal whether this was a callus Love needed, or simply a Super Bowl opportunity lost.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Jordan Love promising debut season with Packers ends with big mistakes