Ranking the NFL Starting Quarterbacks

#10 Jordan Love (Green Bay Packers)

Jordan Love’s physical abilities have never been in question. The doubts about his game coming out of college (and entering last season) had to do with the other elements of playing the quarterback position, like ball placement, processing, and decision-making.

Right from the start of the 2023 season, however, Love put those concerns to rest.

In his debut as the Packers’ starting quarterback, he threw 3 touchdown passes and immediately showed that processing ability and improved accuracy:

Watch him hit Romeo Doubs (his third read) with a perfect throw in the back of the end zone on this play:

That ability to process, work through his reads, and have success from the pocket late in the down was on display throughout the season. Here’s another example, this time from Week 17.

Watch how Love first peaked left to see if the EMOL would be rushing. Then he quickly got his eyes to the middle of the field to read the safeties. Then he moved through his reads. The flat (1), the snag (2), followed by the deep over (3) after the safety bit on the snag:

Another thing that stood out about Love’s performance last year was his ability to handle disguise and post-snap movement.

This touchdown against the Vikings from that same Week 17 game was a great example. The Packers motioned to a 2x2 formation and Minnesota matched up with a single-high look initially:

Love used a hard (silent) count to try and get a read on what the Vikings might be doing. Minnesota tipped their hand:

The boundary safety raced to the sideline and the two defenders to the right started dropping out. This suggested that the Vikings would be rotating to some kind of 2-deep look.

At the snap, Love looked left after the play-fake to verify the coverage. Indeed, the boundary safety would race to the sideline:

When Love looked back to the right, he could see the middle hole defender climbing and the field-corner moving inside. This was an inverted Tampa-2 coverage:

The Packers had 4 verts called, which left Jayden Reed running a go route against a linebacker after being given a free release. That’s a huge mismatch to exploit. And once Love recognized the coverage, he “knew [he] was gonna have J. Reed right there” as he said after the game:

Then he made a ridiculous throw:

Awareness, coverage recognition, and talent were all on display there.

What else do you want? The ability to manipulate defenders? He’s go that too. Take a look at how he used his shoulders to move the middle linebacker and create a window on this completion:

How about his ability to handle the blitz?

Check out how Love responded to this pressure by the Cowboys on a 3rd-and-7 in the playoffs. He used a hard count to get Dallas to tip their hand. He could see that they were bringing a cover-0 blitz, so he changed the play to something targeting the middle of the field. Then he delivered a perfect throw with a defender closing in on him:

We also haven’t even touched on the fact that Love has really good second-reaction ability. He’s got all the tools and put them together nicely in his first full NFL season.

So what are the issues with Love? Well, we didn’t see many of them down the stretch to be honest. Love went on a 9-game run from Week 11 to the NFC Divisional Round where he completed over 70% of his passes and had a ridiculous 21-1 TD-INT ratio.

But there were some problems at times with Love’s decision-making, accuracy, and mechanics that showed up early in the year, disappeared for half a season, and then reared their ugly head in the final 17 minutes of the Packers’ season-ending playoff loss to the 49ers.

Love would complete 5 of 10 passes for just 19 yards with 2 interception during that critical span, including an absolutely terrible interception to end the game and Green Bay’s season:

That was on a 1st-and-10 from Green Bay’s own 36-yard line with 52 seconds remaining. They still had 2 timeouts. They only had about 25-30 yards to cover to get into field goal range and tie the game. There was plenty of time. This was not the moment to throw up a YOLO desperation pass.

But Love did, just like he did on two prior occasions at the end of games earlier in the season.

There were also times throughout 2023 where he’d get a little antsy in the pocket and move unnecessarily, leaving plays on the field. His mechanics and footwork do break down occasionally as well. Sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes he doesn’t.

The thing that separates the good quarterbacks from the greats is consistency. Cleaning up some of those unnecessary throws off his back foot (as good as he is at executing them most of the time) will go a long way towards Love entering that upper-echelon of QBs.

Overall, none of his shortcomings are too severe, though. 2024 should be an exciting year in Green Bay.

Check out the rest of the rankings here:
#32 Bo Nix (Denver Broncos)
#31 Drake Maye (New England Patriots)
#30 J.J. McCarthy (Minnesota Vikings)
#29 Gardner Minshew (Las Vegas Raiders)
#28 Will Levis (Tennessee Titans)
#27 Deshaun Watson (Cleveland Browns)
#26 Anthony Richardson (Indianapolis Colts)
#25 Bryce Young (Carolina Panthers)
#24 Daniel Jones (New York Giants)
#23 Jayden Daniels (Washington Commanders)
#22 Caleb Williams (Chicago Bears)
#21 Geno Smith (Seattle Seahawks)
#20 Russell Wilson (Pittsburgh Steelers)
#19 Derek Carr (New Orleans Saints)
#18 Baker Mayfield (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
#17 Kyler Murray (Arizona Cardinals)
#16 Trevor Lawrence (Jacksonville Jaguars)
#15 Jared Goff (Detroit Lions)
#14 Tua Tagovailoa (Miami Dolphins)
#13 Kirk Cousins (Atlanta Falcons)
#12 Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles)
#11 Brock Purdy (San Francisco 49ers)
#10 Jordan Love (Green Bay Packers)
#9 Dak Prescott (Dallas Cowboys)
#8 C.J. Stroud (Houston Texans)
#7 Justin Herbert (Los Angeles Chargers)
#6 Aaron Rodgers (New York Jets)
#5 Matthew Stafford (Los Angeles Rams)
#4 Lamar Jackson (Baltimore Ravens)
#3 Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals)
#2 Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills)
#1 Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs)