It's time for the Green Bay Packers to find out what they have in QB Jordan Love

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Was there anyone who thought after Aaron Rodgers’ rookie season that the Green Bay Packers had an all-time great waiting to take over at quarterback for Brett Favre?

In a word, no. Even two years later, after subtly pushing Favre into retirement, the Packers still were unsure enough to spend a second-round draft pick in 2008 on Brian Brohm as insurance in case Rodgers didn’t pan out.

So while general manager Brian Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur surely learned a few things about Jordan Love last season, in truth they still don’t have much of a clue on what they have in their 2020 first-round pick – especially after a rookie year in which COVID-19 wiped out the preseason schedule.

Love was drafted as a project and remains one. About the only thing that seems a given at this point is the Packers couldn't have another season with him as their No. 3 quarterback, which he was last year behind Tim Boyle.

That’s strictly a practical matter. Once training camp ends, the No. 3 quarterback doesn’t get many snaps in practice, but that won't continue for a second season with Love. It’s now about speeding up the development of the raw passer, who needs all the snaps he can get – including running the scout team full time in the regular season – to help the Packers decide in the next couple years whether he’s a keeper.

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It’s up to Love and the Packers to create a regular-season environment where he improves even though he knows he’s not going to play, not only in 2021 but likely in 2022 as well. Rodgers has talked often about how he treated scout-team work as his games while backing up Favre for three years.

It’s on Love to do the same now.

“The way you do it is typically,” a quarterbacks coach for another NFL team said, “on a Friday you get all the (scout-team) clips and watch them together, just you and him, so he understands how important it is. You critique him and coach him like it’s practice tape from OTAs against the (starting) defense.

“You talk about decision making, ball security, different things that are general. The plays are (opponents’) plays, they’re not your plays. But your reactions to the defense and reactions to pass rush and pocket feel and escaping and being accurate when you’re able to have a first or second read, boom-boom ball coming out, those kind of things you can talk about.”

The Packers will not tender a qualifying offer to Boyle, who remains an interesting prospect after three seasons in the league. He’s a big guy (6-4, 232) and good athlete (4.75 40, 35-inch vertical) with a strong arm. He stands tall in the pocket and gets the ball out. Boyle has been a good find by the scouting department after going undrafted out of Eastern Kentucky in 2018, and – even though he has hardly played – there’s still reason to think he has the makings of a legit No. 2 quarterback.

The Packers would have had to offer Boyle, a restricted free agent, $2.1 million to keep him. But they weren’t going to do that with Love on the roster. As much as they like Boyle, who took all the backup snaps last season, they can’t afford to pay him that much to be their No. 3.

But unless the Packers saw a big red flag with Love last season – there are no indications they did – then developing him had to be the priority. They spent the first-round pick on him for a reason.

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And though the Packers surely don’t want to just let Boyle walk out the door, his departure frees up more snaps for Love in camp and the preseason.

“We feel very good about what (Love) was able to do in the small window of development that he had (last season),” Gutekunst said last week. “But I think this preseason and then moving forward are going to be very, very important.”

As for when Love might be the starter, the pundits who were sure Rodgers would be gone after 2021 look wrong now. These things are always fluid, but based on how Rodgers played last season at age 37, the best bet is that the three-time MVP will be their quarterback for two more years, at least – assuming his relationships with Gutekunst and LaFleur remain solid.

For all we know, Rodgers might play well enough to finish out his contract, which runs through 2023. He’ll be 40 then, and Love will be heading into his fifth season. Tom Brady outplayed the New England Patriots’ plans for Jimmy Garoppolo, and there’s a chance Rodgers could do the same for the Packers and Love. So if Rodgers is still going strong in a year or two, Gutekunst just might look to deal Love, as the Patriots did three years after drafting Garoppolo.

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We could glean more about near-term plans based on Rodgers’ imminent contract restructure as the Packers create cap maneuverability. If his new deal includes guarantees beyond the $23.2 million he’s set to make this year, it will be a sign he and the team are on the same page for 2022 as well.

Regardless, Love’s redshirt season is over. It’s time to start finding out if he can play in the NFL.