Jordan Love Appreciation Thread

[Gopackgonerd]

The problem is you're gonna throw the "tough tiddies" plays where Jordan makes a great play but your "less" lets you down into the "bad plays". If your less lets you down and can't even do the bare minimum like catch a ball hitting them in the hands, or hitting them in the hands and the defender wrestling away the ball with ease, the more with less doesn't matter. At some point the less still needs to do something. It still should be a part of the evaluation if Jordan makes a good play but the other guy doesn't make a routine play. Especially in key moments.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Gopackgonerd

[MrBobGray]

5 minutes ago, MrBobGray said:

Honestly without being in their room, can't know for sure, but think either Jordan didn't anticipate the coverage shift correctly or Wicks ran the wrong route.  Rams start out showing a 2-high shell and man coverage alignment - they've got a hat on a hat laterally, coverage-wise.  Post-snap they rotate to a single-high look, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure what they're trying to do here.  Field side LB bails at the snap like he's rotating to cover seam->curl on the boundary side, while the boundary side LB plays the flat on that side.  The field side safety rotates down, but that seems kinda weird because literally nobody takes Wicks.  Generally you pattern match to ensure you aren't letting the vertical routes run free, so you'd think either the Nickle or the field side safety would carry him, but the safety acts like he's playing Robber and the Nickle looks like he has no idea what to do here.  That might be bad coverage, but on the end zone view of this play Love looks to the corner on the offensive left after coming off of Musgrave.  This is a weird thing to do with nobody running a route to that side.  Given the way the Nickle reacts to Wicks's route and the way Love looks deep to the left, I think what happened here is:

1. Love reads the safety rotation down and figures this is single high
2. Love holds the safety in the middle of the field to try and give Musgrave space to get vertical
3. Musgrave doesn't separate much from the corner and the safety drops to depth on that side, so Love has to come off of it
4. Love is expecting Wicks to run corner out of the slot as part of a Smash concept with Doubs.  Smash is just a short hitch by the outsider receiver with a corner over the top by the slot.  I think they were looking to get clever here by doing it out of 3x1 and having Watson run a crosser to try and mess with the match principles for the Rams.  I think the idea was to have Wicks run this stem at the safety/middle of the field, then break it back over the top of the CB covering Doubs.  Love would then read this Musgrave->Watson-> Wicks.  Problem is, Musgrave isn't open and the safety that rotated down and the weak side LB have Watson bracketed, but that means Wicks should absolutely be open on the corner route because all the defenders are to the boundary side now.  So Love looks deep left and sees....nothing at all.
5. Love tries to bail and hit Doubs but there's no throwing lane because Nijman is trying to follow his man on a stunt inside and instead loses him and tries to run around Jenkins to get back in front of him, which gives Love no place to step or follow through.  Love tries to adjust to get space to throw left but by that point the pressure gets home.

Yeah I'm quoting my own post, it took way too long to write to get paged so thoroughly.

[MrBobGray]

Other thing that sticks in my head: this play doesn't feel like it works with a post to me.  Let's remove Wicks for a sec and just look at the rest of the routes:

• You got a nice little Wheel/Flat combo with Musgrave/Dillon on the offensive right to flood the flat high/low
• You got Watson coming from the offensive left on a crosser that stops in the shallow MoF
• You have Doubs running basically a five yard stop route that he runs like his only real job is showing a vertical stem off the line

So what does a post add to this?  At the moment you're attacking the offensive right high/low, the offensive middle low, and the offensive left low.  The post Wicks runs attacks the same part of the field Musgrave is already threatening, so you don't gain any additional real estate the defense has to cover.  Now maybe the idea is a levels concept that attacks the offensive right on three levels - low, mid, high.  I don't love running this to the boundary side because you're already compressed, but it's a solid concept you see frequently.  Issue here is that in that case Wicks should be running a real deep dig route at about fifteen yards downfield, not a post.  The entire point of flooding one side of the field at three different depths is to have three different depths and that doesn't happen if you run a post right at the spot Musgrave is going.  On top of that, the post route heads laterally too early (especially with Wicks running the stem at the safety) - the safety gets carried right into Musgrave's route just by the nature of trying to stay over the top of it.  If you're sending Wicks to the right, you want to do so in a way that forces the safety to stay middle of the field as long as possible and you want him to be hitting the deep right side of the field as Musgrave is leaving it out the back. 

Flip it to a corner though?  Now you have a pretty simple but effective high/low on both sides with your fastest player on a shallow crosser if they commit over the top of both high/lows.  If Wicks does run this to the corner, like the stem is the same and the rest of the play is the same, but just one step on the post and took it to the corner, he had two thirds of the field with no one on it and the only coverage a nickle CB who didn't really look like he was sure how to read the 3x1 and find his assignment.  Accidentally running a post instead of a corner is a pretty easy mistake to make too, given mirrored play elements tend toward similar verbiage in the playcall and the stress of a 2 minute drill in an NFL game.

[MacReady]

As of right now, Love’s numbers are in the, “He’s fine,” territory.

If he ends up above 60% and above 6.5 YPA for the season, he’s fine.

Any lower, and if he’s below 60% and below 6.4 YPA by the end of the year, he’s not it.

[Malfatron]

Yeah we can win with love as long as the opposing qbs are fields, rypien, and winston

With pickett, theres a chance, but the tj watt factor likely swings it to pitts favor

[Malfatron]

4 hours ago, MacReady said:

As of right now, Love’s numbers are in the, “He’s fine,” territory.

If he ends up above 60% and above 6.5 YPA for the season, he’s fine.

Any lower, and if he’s below 60% and below 6.4 YPA by the end of the year, he’s not it.

And also...we good with "fine"?

[MacReady]

40 minutes ago, Malfatron said:

And also...we good with "fine"?

No. I should probably define fine.

Fine as in he needs a second year for us to see.

Plenty of great quarterbacks were below one (the 60% threshold and the 6.5 YPA threshold).

An EXTREMELY small amount of even good quarterbacks have been below those thresholds in both.

And every good to great QB who was below in both had TERRIBLE head coaches and/or defensive head coaches.

If Love is below both by season’s end, it’s an obvious no.

If he’s above in one we’re fine with giving him a second year.

Next year though if he’s not at 62+ percent and at 7.0 or higher YPA, he’s an easy no.

[Mazrimiv]

Let's be honest, it doesn't matter if GB beats PIT because it's just a bad Steelers team with a bad QB.

It only matters if GB takes the loss, because that's definitive proof that Love sucks and the entire staff should be fired (along with Gute and Murphy)

[NFLGURU]

10 hours ago, Malfatron said:

And also...we good with "fine"?

Career backup.  He has all the makings of a QB who will get you nowhere.  Good kid, tries hard.  Good/bad enough to get you a 10-20 draft slot every year.  That wont cut it.  I think he'll get better, but it won't be nearly enough.  

[MacReady]

Why is everybody acting like Love just had a good game?

He completed 53% of his passes for 6.8 YPA.

And threw his third or fourth game ending interception.

I am NOT the type to bemoan interceptions. They’re slightly worse than 3rd down sacks. But game ending interceptions are different. They’d be acceptable if he was gunslinging his way to 62% and 7 YPA, but he’s far from both those numbers this year.

I’d like someone to find me a great QB who was below 60% and below 6.5 YPA their rookie year.

Josh Allen was close. He also had nobody to throw to, had a defensive minded head coach and started in his rookie year. Love has a lot more luxury in his situation than Allen did. Plus, Allen might not be as good as people think he is.

[MacReady]

Two game ending interceptions in the same game.

[ChaRisMa]

Love didn’t lose us that game, it’s just another week gone by that he didn’t win us the game. Got to break that ceiling next.

[pf9]

Love will never live up to his full potential as long as MLF is in charge.

Time to fire him in an attempt to save the season.

[GHARMON9]

18 minutes ago, MacReady said:

Why is everybody acting like Love just had a good game?

He completed 53% of his passes for 6.8 YPA.

And threw his third or fourth game ending interception.

I am NOT the type to bemoan interceptions. They’re slightly worse than 3rd down sacks. But game ending interceptions are different. They’d be acceptable if he was gunslinging his way to 62% and 7 YPA, but he’s far from both those numbers this year.

I’d like someone to find me a great QB who was below 60% and below 6.5 YPA their rookie year.

Josh Allen was close. He also had nobody to throw to, had a defensive minded head coach and started in his rookie year. Love has a lot more luxury in his situation than Allen did. Plus, Allen might not be as good as people think he is.

You know how I feel about Love on the season.

First Half Love was FANTASTIC.  I genuinely can't be mad at him this game. He did well enough to win. That throw to Reed off balance was nice. 

Watson would be getting benched if it was up to me. Aaron Jones ****ed us good on that last drive.
 

Did this game change my opinion ? No but he was actually a plus today. 

[StatKing]

He's being outplayed by Josh Dobbs.