Are the Packers, Jordan Love a dark-horse pick to win the NFC? | You Pod To Win The Game
Yahoo Sports NFL writers Charles Robinson and Charles McDonald examine the potential for the Green Bay Packers in 2023 with fourth-year quarterback Jordan Love taking over under center.
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Video Transcript
[AUDIO LOGO]
CHARLES MCDONALD: Packers. I think for my dark horse pick in the NFC, for whatever that means in this conference, that would be my pick. Jordan Love-- I don't know why I think this, but I kind of think he's going to be OK. The offensive line is still pretty solid.
And if they can add another wideout-- I think if they can get Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the first round this year, that will kind of be a slam dunk pick for them just as nice slot receiver prospect for them for him to grow with. Because they do need some more depth at wide receiver. But I think when you look at the defense, they kind of underachieved a little bit last year. But towards the end of the year, they started to pick it up. And I still am impressed with the talent they've been able to assemble there.
And again, we still haven't even gotten through the draft yet. So maybe I'm too high on Jordan Love. Maybe it's unreasonable, given that we've only seen him play a couple of games. But I think he's going to be good enough where they can surprise some people, and that'll be my dark horse NFC pick at plus-2200. Not as crazy as plus-6000 like the Colts.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Here's the only thing with the Packers that gives me pause is Matt LaFleur-- we were at the owners meetings. I'm sitting there, and he gets asked about Jordan Love. And I thought, OK, he'll probably tap dance around any quarterback questions, right, because you got to wait until the Rodgers thing gets done.
But instead, he engages on Jordan Love, which again, that's the direction of the franchise. They want Jordan to be the guy. But he basically was like, we got to temper the expectations here for Jordan Love. He basically was straight up saying, all right, let's pull it back a little bit, which-- I'm going to be real with you-- is not great when a guy's been in the league three years.
Three years grooming for this spot, and you're saying, now that he's finally getting that opportunity-- and by the way, he was a first-round pick. He's a first-round pick who has been sitting there and developing, we believe, right? Supposedly been developing for three years. And your head coach is like, whoa there, let's just-- that concerns me.
I'm not saying you should go out there and be-- it would be counter-intuitive to go out there and just gas him up, right? You don't want to gas him up. But I think you could have just been like, we're encouraged. We're looking forward to getting him out there and getting him these reps.