1.26 - Jordan Love [QB; Utah State] - QB1

[deathstar]

 

[coachbuns]

19 minutes ago, Ragnar Danneskjold said:

I agree with that.  

The only thing that the Packers have going for them is they will have more experience playing against Shanahan's concepts, which will help. All the moving parts affects the play speed of the defense as they get distracted or get confused on the adjustment.

There is always that one team that has your number, and right now its the 49ers.  The whole picture changes if someone like the Seahawks, who played them tough this year, knock them out.  Sometimes that is what you need if the gap is too big to close drafting at 30 and having tight cap space like we did.

49ers were 1 yard away from being a wild card team last year.  Their division will be just as tough this year.  49ers were the worst possible match up for the Packers  ...  anybody else and who knows.

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, actual information about what teams think is rare.  But we do have some examples.

The Packers had Clay Matthews graded as a top 10 talent, at least a dozen teams did not.  Turns out the Packers were correct.
The Packers had Casey Hayward graded as a first round pick, but most teams (having passed on him twice) did not.  Turns out the Packers were correct.
The Packers had Datone Jones graded as a first round pick, the Dallas Cowboys had him graded in the third round.  Turns out the Cowboys were more correct than the Packers.

Every team is going to have hits and misevaluations that lead to misses.  But it's utterly bizarre that a Patriots fan is the person coming here to try to troll since there's no team that has more weird draft whiffs than the Patriots.  I mean- Lawrence Maroney, Chad Jackson, Terrence Wheatley, Ron Brace, Ras-I Dowling, Jermaine Cunningham, Aaron Dobson, Dominique Easley, Jordan Richards, Cyrus Jones, and Duke Dawson are huge whiffs the Patriots have made in the first and second round in the last decade.  Sony Michel and N'Keal Harry don't inspire a lot of confidence either.

Edited April 27, 2020 by PossibleCabbage

[Leader]

Acme Packing - Sports fans have an easier time facing their own mortality than reckoning with the fallibility of their sports heroes. The buffer of an undefinable timeline pushes off expectations, lowering the stakes about “window” talk with a player like Aaron Rodgers. Trading up to take Utah State’s Jordan Love snaps into a focus a world without the Green Bay Packers’ suis generis signal caller, like a favorite show announcing it is going off the air. Even if we can all agree that the show’s quality fell off the last few seasons, it was still a familiar pleasure. There was comfort in knowing it would come on every Sunday and deliver, in ways both jubilating and occasionally devastating.

Jordan Love could be great. That’s not the point. His very existence threatens to upend a decade of established greatness, not because he will absolutely force Rodgers out, but because it starts the clock on QB1 in Green Bay. Three years, maybe four. Seeing the end amps up the pressure to win now, a feeling that, in itself, incites frustration with this draft pick. Taking Love is not a move to win now. It doesn’t bring Green Bay any closer to winning a Super Bowl with Rodgers in 2020 or 2021.

[spilltray]

Its funny when you see for example CBS. Their #1 "winner" was Cincinatti. Just based on Burrow.

Quote

Winner: Bengals

Cincinnati is the biggest winner because it landed the face of its franchise at the most important (quarterback) position. It is the ultimate objective for any NFL team.

If that's true, then how is it any different for the Packers? If they got their QB for the next 10 years, a guy they thought is a top 10 type guy, maybe even the second best QB in the draft, at 26, how is that not every bit the same win? Because of Aaron Rodgers? There was already debate this year over how much he's lost, and even if you add weapons, he's going to continue to physically decline. How much longer before it's time to move on from Rodgers (and his contract)? At least not this year, but after that it keeps getting more likely. What do you do at that point? You don't get a chance to take a guy like Love in the late first often. Usually the QBs picked this late are desperation picks teams trying to fall in love with a QB who really shouldn't even be a first round pick.

Everyone had their mind set on WR because of a 3 WR base offense. If they move to a bigger base package with 2 TE or 2 RB,  then the automatic, "Oh yeah MUST have" feel fades away. Personally I'd have rather given up the 3rd if it could have gotten in front of MN for Jefferson and stuck with more WR than less, but the board fell pretty badly to get a good one, and it's better to trust your board.

I said pre draft I expect the media to be even more wrong on talent evaluation this year because of limited contact. I think most of the angst is because people put too much faith in these guys who state their unsubstantiated opinions on when THEY thought guys would go as if it was indisputable fact.

[deathstar]

If Rodgers goes down for five games, Love comes in and keeps us in the playoff race, and we go on to win a Super Bowl, then he literally is a win now move.

[Uffdaswede]

The Acme Packing take above is the best disentangling of this frustrating draft I have seen.

And Deathstar, I can see you being right on that take above next year. Maybe not in 20. I sure hope the kid doesn’t have to be called on four games in. 

[CalhounLambeau]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C3J0IqJPbk4QC-Qe80JjzdRYpmAbbH5Ahd54c6-A6dw/edit?usp=sharing

 

Three new cuts for Jordan Love were made last night. 

[Packerraymond]

4 minutes ago, CalhounLambeau said:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C3J0IqJPbk4QC-Qe80JjzdRYpmAbbH5Ahd54c6-A6dw/edit?usp=sharing

 

Three new cuts for Jordan Love were made last night. 

Are 2018 games tough to get a hold of for Love? I've seen the MSU game, but that's it. Realize before Love took them to an 11-2 season, no one probably wanted to watch USU on TV.

As always, thanks for all you do with these! 

[cannondale]

33 minutes ago, deathstar said:

If Rodgers goes down for five games, Love comes in and keeps us in the playoff race, and we go on to win a Super Bowl, then he literally is a win now move.

What if I said it would be Boyle coming in ?  Not far fetched.

[Leader]

MMQB - Packers GM Brian Gutekunst wants to, at the very least, get this out there—drafting Love with the 26th pick on Thursday, the result of a trade-up from 30, wasn’t part of some master plan hatched long ago to lant Aaron Rodger's heir in 2020.

As he sees it, moving up and drafting the 21-year-old from Utah State was more capitalizing on an opportunity and less creating any sort of path of succession. In fact, as the draft wore on, a scenario that’s not all that uncommon started to play out in the Packers’ (virtual) war room. Players Green Bay liked kept coming off the board in the late teens and early 20s, which started to shift the idea of taking Love from hypothetical to possible.

“We looked at it like we really do every year,” Gutekunst said Sunday afternoon. “We evaluate all the players, and certainly quarterback is of the highest priority for an NFL franchise. We evaluate those guys very closely. And you set your boards. Again, you don’t know what’ll happen. But I've never in my time in Green Bay, we've never been in a spot where it was like, Hey, we have to go get a quarterback this year. This was no different.”

Long story short: Eventually, Love was the top guy left, and the gap was widening.

“As those players got picked, it was kind of like, With the way our board was, there really wasn't anyone else at that level that we felt comfortable taking.” Gutekunst said.

Meanwhile, as the GM and his lieutenants made calls, it became very clear to them, as they sat at 30, teams right in front of them—the Seahawks, Ravens and Titans—were seriously considering moving down to collect more capital, and had fielded inquiries on cost.

Knowing that, Gutekunst had a decision to make. He could get aggressive, and move in front of the teams between 27 and 29. Or he could sit at 30, knowing the other players that Green Bay valued at that spot were gone, and he’d be working furiously to move the pick as a result, if Love didn’t make it there.

At that point, the GM had seen enough of Love to envision him in Matt LaFleur’s offense, one that strives to marry the run game to the pass game, in a wing-T-ish kind of way that makes things more difficult on a defense. Love had the feet and arm to pull it off, and that was just the tip of the iceberg in what Gutekunst liked on him, the result of a process that started for him, really, at Death Valley when Utah State took on the LSU machine.

“He's just a really smooth, fluid athlete with a really loose arm,” Gutekunst said. “Natural thrower, certainly has a lot of arm strength. So, again, the physical traits, that was evident watching him throw in warmups and in the game. I like his competitive grit. That's a tough challenge going into Death Valley for a team like that. I thought he took some chances and tried to keep them in there as long as he could. But, again, it was a brief exposure.

“And LSU had about 15–16 guys I was looking at as well, so ... yeah …. But that was kind of what we took out of it.”

Utah State lost 42–6, Love threw three picks and everything was underway. No one would’ve guessed that’d be the first step toward finding the next Rodgers for Green Bay.

But here we are.

And there the Packers were, everything coming together fast—with that threat of Seattle or Baltimore dealing in front of them, and the need to do something about it. It left little time to call Rodgers before Gutekunst dealt a fourth-rounder to Miami to move from 30 to 26 to get Love. It wasn’t until after all that, that Gutekunst had the chance to call Rodgers and talk him through the whole thing.

The GM wouldn’t divulge what was said, but suffice it to say, this isn’t uncharted territory for him. He was the Packers’ Southeast area scout back when Rodgers was drafted as Favre’s replacement and hasn’t forgotten all the good, and the bad from that pick. And as easy as it is to compare this to that, philosophically he sees this as an extension of what Ron Wolf used to do—basically drafting a quarterback every year.

“We haven’t been able to do that the last few years, it just hasn’t fallen for us the right way,” he said. “And it’s not like we haven't wanted to, it’s just the value of the player and where we thought they were and where we could take them at the time, it just didn't happen. I think it's always kind of been in my DNA that anywhere in the draft, if you have an opportunity to take a quarterback you really think can play, you need to consider it.

“That's really what this move is. I know people may look at it differently from outside, but it was kind of one of those things where he was a guy we really think can play somewhere down the road. And he happened to be available to us. And it was really pretty much that simple. I think it's a little different than the Favre/Aaron thing because there were some different dynamics going on there at the time. But I think we’ve got an elite quarterback that's going to lead our team for, hopefully, a long time. And now I feel really good about a couple of the guys that we got behind him if anything should ever happen.”

It’s hard to say now whether Love will grow to be more than that. But by going to Green Bay and sitting—he was seen as plenty raw coming out—he may get the best shot to do that.

And we all know how that worked out for the last guy.

 

[Rainmaker90]

I’m watching the LSU game again, and am so impressed. 3 INTs or not, this guy is throwing to guys who may not be good enough for the CLF , against a defense where 6 players got drafted, two in the first round, 2 in the second and quite possibly the best CB in the nation Derek Stingley JR , true freshman who is going to be a top 5 pick in two years. And Love Competed. High level throws, didn’t look overwhelmed, shook or anything 

[spilltray]

Just now, Rainmaker90 said:

I’m watching the LSU game again, and am so impressed. 3 INTs or not, this guy is throwing to guys who may not be good enough for the CLF , against a defense where 6 players got drafted, two in the first round, 2 in the second and quite possibly the best CB in the nation Derek Stingley JR , true freshman who is going to be a top 5 pick in two years. And Love Competed. High level throws, didn’t look overwhelmed, shook or anything 

Isn't one of the biggest knocks on Rodgers is the unwillingness to attempt those throws? I prefer it to Favre's recklessness, but it's probably an overcorrection. Love might hit more of a happy medium in that regard.

[Rainmaker90]

2 minutes ago, spilltray said:

Isn't one of the biggest knocks on Rodgers is the unwillingness to attempt those throws? I prefer it to Favre's recklessness, but it's probably an overcorrection. Love might hit more of a happy medium in that regard.

I don’t think it has to be  an either or or. I don’t want an extreme on both sides. 
 

And listening to others the explanation that he had to make things happen due to lack of talent, makes a lot of sense to me. How else were they going to win. 

[cannondale]

He can move, but he doesn't seem fast, quick or elusive to me. He gets caught or takes straight on hits a lot. I don't want to say he's not athletic, maybe angular ??

Gute says he has a loose arm. Don't know the difference between that and a long delivery. Certainly not a compact delivery. Is there a measureable for that ? Anyone put a stopwatch on his delivery ??

Edited April 27, 2020 by cannondale