Mark Murphy: Wouldn't be fair to judge Jordan Love now
Before the 2023 season got underway, Packers president Mark Murphy said it would take "at least half a season to know" what they have in Jordan Love as a starting quarterback.
We are now eight weeks into the season and Murphy's view is that more information is needed to make a full judgement of the quarterback's future. Murphy answers questions from fans in a monthly column on the Packers' website and one of the queries for this month concerned Murphy's timeline for evaluating Love. Murphy's answer pointed to other issues with the offense complicating the team's read on what Love is capable of doing.
"Young players often take time to find consistency, but we still very much believe in Jordan and are excited to see his continued development," Murphy wrote. "In 2008, after eight games we had seen enough of Aaron Rodgers to sign him to a contract extension. Aaron was in a much different situation, though, as we had good veteran receivers in Donald Driver and Greg Jennings, a quality left tackle in Chad Clifton and a good running game with Ryan Grant. Jordan, meanwhile, is facing a much different situation with young receivers and tight ends, no David Bakhtiari and a struggling run game. It wouldn’t be fair to judge Jordan now since there are so many other factors that have contributed to the offense's poor performance (e.g., dropped passes, penalties, mental errors). We should have a much better sense regarding Jordan at the end of the season. In the NFL, quarterback is the most important position, but also the hardest position to play."
Whatever the situation around him, the Packers are going to have to draw some conclusions about Love at the end of this season. That's why General Manager Brian Gutekunst said this week that Love has a "very important 10 games" between now and the end of the season and the first one comes at home against the Rams on Sunday.
