Packers: What to Watch For in Jordan Love’s Preseason Debut

Play-calling

Often a team’s coaching staff will tell you what they think of a player by how they structure the offense and what plays they call. Some examples that spring to mind are Mitchell Trubisky and Jimmy Garappolo and how they were treated with kid gloves and not asked to make many advanced throws by their team’s coaches. That’s what I’m referring to here.

What plays Matt LaFleur and Nathanial Hackett draw up for Jordan Love should tell viewers what the coaching staff clearly thinks of him. If they call a bevy of screen passes and 5-yard outs, then it stands to reason that the coaching staff doesn’t totally trust him to push the ball down the field just yet. They might also be trying to protect his confidence and want Love to get some completions under his belt before they start calling for intermediate and deep throws. And that all makes sense and is understandable.

But trying to prevent a young quarterback from making mistakes so that he doesn’t lose his confidence is a double-edged sword. It makes sense on its face, as a string of early failures might rattle a quarterback to his core, rendering him unable to truly believe in himself going forward. The great ones, however, can bounce back and learn from the mistakes they make. Peyton Manning tossed 28 interceptions his rookie year and he used that experience and got better. If a quarterback is going to be exceptional, then a few bad games or even a bad season shouldn’t necessarily knock him off course. Now with all that being said, a vanilla game plan could mean that the Packers’ coaching staff is simply building Love up to a full workload by the third preseason game.