By Dan Zaksheske – Dan Z.
Updated Nov. 10, 2021.
Follow @walterfootball for updates.
First off, let me just give a big thank you to WalterFootball.com for giving me a platform to share my thoughts and experience. I’ve been a big fan of this site for a long time, and to be able to actually contribute content is an incredible honor.
Quick background on me: I spent nearly a decade working at ESPN producing audio content, mainly focused on college and NFL football. After leaving ESPN, I joined a sports research company called STAT Factor, where I am the Director of NFL Content and the creator of the “STAT Stack,” where you can find more of my work.
This Sunday, we got to see our first extended look at Packers second-year quarterback Jordan Love after Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 and was unable to play. The Green Bay offense struggled to get much going and scored fewer than 20 points for the first time since its opening loss to the Saints. Did the struggles all fall on Love? Let’s dive into the tape and find out …
First Drive: Starting on own 24, 14:56 left in 1st quarter, tied 0-0
Green Bay starts the game with the ball and comes out with a play-action rollout to Love’s right. The Kansas City defensive end keeps contain and pressures Love, who misses an opportunity to hit his fullback coming across the line of scrimmage, and his pass went incomplete. An Aaron Jones run brings up 3rd-and-6; the Chiefs get pressure and Love is forced to just get the ball away, sailing it over his checkdown’s head. The Packers punt.
Second Drive: Starting on own 25, 5:56 left in the first quarter, Kansas City leads 7-0
Kansas City goes on a time-consuming touchdown drive on its first possession, putting Green Bay in a 7-0 hole. A pair of strong runs from A.J. Dillon bring up a 1st-and-10 from just shy of midfield. Love completes his first pass of the day, a quick out to Davante Adams, who carries a defender for a first down into Kansas City territory. After a short Dillon run, the Packers set up a screen to the second-year back and Love makes a shotput-style throw – for some unknown reason – that nearly falls incomplete, but Dillon grabs it before it hits the grass and is able to gain another chunk of yards.
The Packers are set up at the Chiefs’ 24 with 1st-and-10. Back-to-back Jones runs bring up 3rd-and-8. Frank Clark gets a great jump on the snap off the left edge and comes in unblocked. The Packers were trying to set up a wide receiver screen, but Clark forces Love to airmail it. The Packers attempt a field goal, but Mason Crosby pulls it wide-left.
“The laces were in … they were IN!” – Lieutenant Einhorn … and also Crosby, who chewed out his holder after the kick.
Third Drive: Starting on Kansas City 37, 14:54 left in the second quarter, Kansas City leads 7-0
The Green Bay defense comes up with a fourth-down stop that gives the offense the ball in Kansas City territory. Aaron Jones gives the Packers a first down with back-to-back runs and then is bottled up on the ensuing play. Following a false start, the Packers are facing a 2nd-and-17 from the 30. Love bobbles the snap, but he is able to contain it and nearly throws an interception while trying to hit Dillon near the left sideline. Tyrann Mathieu made a break on the ball and got both hands on it, but it went through him and somehow Dillon made the catch for a short gain. Now 3rd-and-12 from the 25, the Packers try to set up a screen, but it’s covered, and Love finds Adams running a short crossing route and he’s tackled shy of the marker. The Packers try the field goal again, but this one is blocked.
Third-drive notes: The Packers are clearly protecting Love, running screens and short crossing routes, and not allowing him to look down the field at all. Everything in the air thus far has been designed with him getting the ball out as quickly as possible. He has not thrown a pass farther than five yards past the line of scrimmage, and the Kansas City pass rush seems to be timing his snap count and getting pressure on every dropback.
Fourth Drive: Starting on own 2, 8:19 left in the second quarter, Kansas City leads 7-0
The Chiefs punt on their next drive and pin the ball deep inside Green Bay territory. Despite Love standing on his own goal line while taking the first down snap under center, the Packers run play-action and Love is looking down the field. No one is open, though, and Love flushes to his right and dumps it off to his checkdown, Dillon, who is able to catch-and-run for 20 yards. The Packers go with another first-down pass, but Love can’t find any open receivers and scrambles for eight yards. Jones picks up the first down with a short carry on second down, and the Packers go to the air for the third-straight first-down play on this drive. The Chiefs are called for pass interference on a slant to Adams, giving Green Bay another first down. Yet again, Love drops back and yet again he’s pressured and forced to scramble, this time for short gain. A short Dillon run sets up 3rd-and-6 at the Green Day 45. Love throws into tight coverage to Adams down the left sideline, but the throw is short, and Adams is forced to knock the ball away from the defender to avoid the interception. The Chiefs brought a five-man blitz and gave Adams’ one-on-one coverage against Charvarious Ward. The Packers punt again.
Fifth Drive: Starting on own 22, 1:44 left in the second quarter, Kansas City leads 10-0
After a Chiefs three-and-out, the ensuing punt hits a Packer, and the Chiefs grab the ball. Despite being set-up with an immediate first-and-goal, the Green Bay defense comes up with a stop and forces a field goal attempt, which Kansas City converts. Love gets the ball back with under two minutes in the half and a final opportunity to grab points. He heaves one up to Randall Cobb on first down, and Cobb comes back to make the catch. It’s an ill-advised throw: Love is moving to his right near the sideline when he fires back across his body 30 yards downfield. The defender nearly gets there, but Cobb boxes him out and comes down with it.
Now with 1st-and-10 on the Kansas City 43, Love makes a low throw to Cobb that he catches for one yard but would have been better incomplete because it keeps the clock moving. After a Love scramble on second down for a short gain, head coach Matt LaFleur takes his second timeout. On 3rd-and-5, Love moves to his right and has Adams open for a first down, but he throws it behind him, incomplete. Now 4th-and-5, the Packers line up to go for it, but the play clock runs down, and they’re forced to use their final timeout with the clock already stopped at 30 seconds. Love seems unaware of how to run the 2-minute offense. The Chiefs bring the house, and Love tosses a back-shoulder pass to Adams, who is not looking for that throw and is continuing up the sideline. It falls incomplete, and turns over to the Chiefs. Kansas City adds another field goal to go up 13-0 heading into halftime.
Second Half
The half starts with five-straight punts by both teams. This period is relatively uneventful other than a snap that came while Love was trying to change a play at the line, but he was able to fall on the loose ball to avoid disaster. We’ll move ahead to the Packers’ eighth drive…
Eighth Drive: Starting on own 8, 0:49 left in the third quarter, Kansas City leads 13-0
It’s worth noting that on the previous drive, the Chiefs really started ramping up the blitzes and were all over Love, including getting their first sack. The first pass of the Packers’ drive comes on 2nd-and-12 from inside their own 5, and Love makes his best throw of the day. He steps up into a clean pocket and hits Adams on a 15-yard out, perfectly on-time, and its a strong throw. Adams had separation and there was no pressure. Again, no pressure on the next play, letting Love hit Marquez Valdes-Scantling across the middle for another solid gain. Valdes-Scantling was open and the pocket was clean for Love to step up.
Two short, quick passes gain another first down thanks to some YAC from Adams on the second completion. Following a defensive pass interference, a Dillon run, a Dillon catch, and an Adams catch – all for short gains -, the Packers face a short fourth-and-.5 at the Kansas City 40. Green Bay elects to throw, and Adams is open on a quick pass for an easy conversion. Love has completed nine-straight passes, including seven on this drive. Kansas City has not blitzed and is playing off-coverage guarding against the big play. After a couple of Jones runs set up 1st-and-10 from the Kansas City 24, the Chiefs finally bring the pressure and force Love to throw it away. On a second-down pass with no pressure, Love throws wide of Adams to bring up 3rd-and-10. Love drops back, looking for Adams the whole way, and L’Jarius Sneed goes up and takes it away for the interception.
Ninth Drive: Starting on own 47, 7:51 left in the game, Kansas City leads 13-0
The Packers score on their final drive of the game, thanks to good field position, a big YAC catch from Cobb on an early third down, and big runs from Aaron Jones. The Chiefs continue to blitz and leave Adams in single coverage, and Love continues trying to get him the ball, but Love’s not even giving him a chance because of the pressure. The passes are sailing out of bounds. Green Bay ends up with a 4th-and-5, and Love throws off his back foot with the blitz coming and finds an open Allen Lazard, who makes a nice move at the 5 after the catch and scores the touchdown. The Chiefs then run out the clock to win the game.
Final thoughts:
This was a rough game for Jordan Love; he was facing one of the worst defenses in the NFL, yet he really struggled. The Chiefs blitzed 19 times, and Love could not handle the pressure. It was clear that the Chiefs’ game plan was very different than had they been facing Rodgers – there is no way they would have blitzed Rodgers so frequently and given him one-on-one coverage on the outside, especially against Davante Adams. The Chiefs didn’t think Love could beat them through the air and regularly brought five, six and seven rushers, leaving light coverage and daring Love to make throws. But he just couldn’t make them.
In addition, Love struggled in the 2-minute drill before the end of the first half, seeming like he wasn’t sure how to run the offense. During the Packers’ touchdown drive, he was not moving the offense with urgency, despite being down by two scores, seemingly not understanding the situation. Even the touchdown was due in large part to great individual efforts from Cobb, Jones and Lazard, though the scoring pass was a nice back-foot throw in the face of a free-rusher on the blitz. The Chiefs consistently had unblocked defenders bearing down on Love, and it’s unclear if that was because the young quarterback was failing to change protections as needed or if the Green Bay blockers were blowing assignments. It was likely a little bit of both.
After watching this game, the happiest man in the world has to be Aaron Rodgers. It’s clear that the drop-off from him to Love is massive, and Rodgers really has a lot of leverage over the Packers now, especially if we don’t see the former Utah State quarterback again this year. It should make for another drama-filled Aaron Rodgers offseason, which seems to be exactly how he likes it.
Dan Z. is a writer for STAT Factor, a dedicated sports research company that provides many high-profile broadcasters with detailed information on some of the biggest events in sports. To read more of Dan’s work, please subscribe to STAT Stack here.
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