After quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ trade to the New York Jets earlier this year, some were wondering if the Green Bay Packers moved on to successor Jordan Love too early. Folks, the team has their guy. Well, for now. He may be someone else’s guy in 2025; it’s really too early to say. It’s been a bumpy first half of the 2023 season, but the last two weeks have been a bit of a bright spot when it comes to the level of play of the Packers’ starting quarterback. His deep ball and decision-making have both improved, he looks more comfortable when things don’t go exactly as planned, and there seems to be budding chemistry between Love and two receivers in particular: rookies Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks.
I feel fully confident that Love will be somebody’s quarterback after his current contract is up in 2025. At the very least, he’s shown competence at the position for which the Packers traded up to draft him. Earlier this year, President and CEO Mark Murphy said that it would take at least half a season to know what the team has in Love. We’re now in Week 11, but it’s been difficult to evaluate the first-year starter thus far, beyond having competence at the position. Several of Love’s weapons on offense have been riddled with injuries for much of the season, and the offensive line has taken a while to find their rhythm after LT David Bakhtiari’s season-ending/ongoing injury. Love also doesn’t have the luxury of throwing to a more experienced group of weapons like his predecessor. In 2008, Aaron Rodgers’ first year as a starter, his pass catchers included just two rookies, TE Jermichael Finley and WR Jordy Nelson. Jordan Love is throwing to a group of mostly first and second-year players. The most experienced weapon on the current Packers offense is 7th-year RB Aaron Jones, who has battled the injury bug on and off this season. As previously mentioned, we’ve seen some encouraging improvement from Love the last couple of weeks, but is it enough to offer him a contract extension just yet? Probably not. The good news: the team has another full season before they truly need to make a move.
With 8 games left this season, we’re not going to see a mid-season extension for Love. Before this season began, the only way I envisioned such a scenario was if Love absolutely blew everyone’s socks off. But, like I said, he’s been difficult to evaluate. If his recent improvement continues, and we finally see what this offense is truly capable of with the new receiving group, or if the Packers somehow sneak into the playoffs, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if a deal were to get done before the 2024 season begins. I still don’t think that’s very likely, however.
There are a couple of QBs who are slated to become free agents in 2025, both of whom I think will end up signing mid-season extensions with their respective teams next year: Tua Tagovailoa and Trevor Lawrence. I fully expect both of these deals to be fairly massive, and I think Love and his agent may want to see what those contracts look like before beginning any sort of extension talks with the Packers. After all, the QB market is a weird one, and all it takes is one Daniel Jones to reset the entire thing.
If nothing happens in the 2024 offseason, it will come down to Love’s level of play in the final year of his deal. I’ve previously speculated that the Packers may use a higher-than-expected pick on a QB next year to give Love some competition (Sean Clifford isn’t the guy, I’m so sorry). Regardless of whether this happens or not, I still think we’re going to see a significant jump from Love, as he’ll be motivated to earn his next big payday, and the Packers will have hopefully addressed some serious concerns on their offensive line via the draft. It’s only a matter of time before we get a good idea of what Love’s next contract will truly look like. The question is: will that contract be with the team who drafted him?
