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Albert Breer’s Inside the QB Room Series: Why Joe Burrow Believes Bengals’ Success Is ‘Inevitable’
Jordan Love came into the NFL with 26 college starts, having thrown for 8,600 yards, 60 touchdowns and 29 interceptions in 38 games as a Utah State Aggie.
And still, he says now, he was starting from zero in a lot of different areas.
In one of those areas, it was particularly challenging. You’d see why if you asked the seventh-year Packer now how much experience he had setting protections over his four years as a college player.
“None. Zero,” he told me on my training camp visit to Green Bay. “The crazy part, in college, we’d just throw hot, like there were no protection adjustments. If someone blitzes, you go to a little peek slant; you throw that. So when I got to the NFL, that was a whole new world, understanding protections, making calls, making protection adjustments. That was all new for me. And I don’t know if you want me to keep going; I could talk all day about this stuff.”
Which is why Love and the Packers are very proud of the work they’ve done over the past six seasons.
They should be.
Love’s coach, Matt LaFleur, now says that Love is the best he’s ever been around setting protections, which illustrates why the macro of the 27-year-old as a quarterback has come as far as it has. LaFleur was with a young Kirk Cousins in Washington, Matt Ryan in Atlanta, Jared Goff in Los Angeles, and, for four years in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers, who set what once seemed an impossible standard for Love to chase.
Years later, hard work, smarts and football instincts have turned these situations from problems into areas Love can manage where the Packers now feel like they’ve got an advantage over their opponent’s defense. Which is remarkable, and best illustrates the quarterback development that’s happened at Lambeau Field.
How do you go from Brett Favre to Rodgers and Rodgers to Love so seamlessly? The first step, of course, is to unearth quarterbacking talent in the draft. The next step is to develop it, and finding a way to do that, as decades of NFL evidence would show you, is no slam dunk.
Yet, here are the Packers, having done it again.
An art for the game’s best quarterbacks
So let’s start with the simple concept of adjusting to a blitz.
There are the beginnings of it for a quarterback, which usually come as Love laid it out—recognizing the blitz is coming and looking for a receiver in the area that the blitzer vacates. Then, there’s the ability to make protection calls before the snap, adjusting the offensive group’s assignments to account for the area the quarterback sees a potential blitz. After that, there’s the mastery of calling out the “Mike,” the fifth rusher specifically, and allowing the linemen to divide assignments.
That’s a simplification, yes, of something that’s an art for the game’s best quarterbacks, and something that few fans can see that separates great signal-callers from merely good ones.
“Being able to see Aaron, there’d be stuff in the meeting room we wouldn’t even talk about, and we’d go to practice, and he’d start making these protection calls, and I’d be like, What are you seeing? What are you calling right here? He’d break all of it down for me, tell me why he’s doing it, what he’s seeing. And it’s stuff that just blew my mind, because then the coaches would be like, Don’t even worry about that right now; you’re not there yet.”Jordan Love
“When I first got here, that was the hardest thing for me to understand because I hadn’t done it before,” Love said. “Being able to see Aaron, there’d be stuff in the meeting room we wouldn’t even talk about, and we’d go to practice, and he’d start making these protection calls, and I’d be like, What are you seeing? What are you calling right here? He’d break all of it down for me, tell me why he’s doing it, what he’s seeing.
“And it’s stuff that just blew my mind, because then the coaches would be like, Don’t even worry about that right now; you’re not there yet.”
If that was the mental realization of how far he had to go, the physical one came on Nov. 7, 2021, when Love made his starting debut for Rodgers, who was in COVID-19 protocol. The stat sheet showed the then-second-year quarterback throwing only one pick and taking one sack. The reality was that Kansas City DC Steve Spagnuolo put his brain in a blender all night.
And that was even though LaFleur, OC Nathaniel Hackett and the staff took a lot off his plate. The Packers, for example, instructed Love to “can” (switch to a second call) any play where the Chiefs showed an all-out blitz, building in full protections for those spots.
“With Aaron, a play would come in, and it’s not a built-in protection where he sees it, he’s just making adjustments, checking out of stuff, canning plays and signaling stuff to receivers,” Love recalled. “And I think understanding that and being in the Chiefs game, a lot of the time I couldn’t even see it because they’re disguising it so well. Tyrann Mathieu was back there playing around, and I couldn’t even tell it was all out.
“And at the snap, you’re getting hit like, Oh, it’s all out, here it comes. And so a lot of that was like, Man, I’ve got to get better at being able to see this stuff, understand what teams are trying to show disguise-wise. And if they get me, they get me. But I want to be able to pick stuff up presnap and get us to the best play possible, so I don’t feel like I’m letting everybody down as I did in that game.”
So he went to Rodgers, and the two quarterbacks would chip away at it, with position coach Luke Getsy helping out, too. When Getsy left for the Bears, veteran Tom Clements dove into the details with Love. Hackett did, too, and Hackett’s successor as OC, Adam Stenavich, brought a different perspective as an old line coach. LaFleur was part of the work, too, that started in the classroom and eventually showed up on the field.
Love’s best instances of growth
Love sat for three years behind Rodgers, which afforded him time to develop, but he acknowledges that knowing what he was doing and actually applying it were two different things.
So, all of the quizzing he got from those coaches over the years, meant to put him on the spot and make him think fast, did prepare him, but couldn’t possibly have him fully prepared to look across the line, see Aidan Hutchinson or Montez Sweat, and make the right adjustment as the play clock was ticking down. That process would take experience, ready or not, after the Packers traded Rodgers in 2023.
“It takes time,” Love said. “It takes you being able to sit in the quarterback room and a coach being like, Hey, what protection adjustments should we make right here to pick this up? And you have to sit there and think about it. And then, you start getting more comfortable with that. And now you’re out there on the field, and it’s one thing to hear a protection, have a protection in your head, have a play in your head, and another to go to the line and say, Hey, this is all messed up. I see what they’re trying to do. How can I figure out how to pick this up and get us to a good play while the clock’s going down and everything’s against me.”
Love took a big step, in that regard, in Week 13 of his first year (2023) as the starting quarterback.
The Chiefs were on the opposite sideline at Lambeau, as was Spagnuolo. The Packers were a win away from getting back to .500 for the first time in two months after a 3–6 start. And the Kansas City defensive coordinator was going to throw a ton at the quarterback again.
This time, Love was ready, and it showed in the numbers—he completed 25-of-36 for 267 yards, three touchdowns and no picks.
Under his command, the Packers controlled the fourth quarter and won 27–19.
“That was one of my better games of understanding pressures, being able to make adjustments, picking stuff up, throwing a couple of touchdowns on some of those all-out plays,” he said. “And for me, that was a cool moment because this is a test of, I’ve gone against the same defense, didn’t have my best day, felt really bad about it, got better, put the work in, and was able to go out there and put a much better performance together and see stuff, presnap, pick stuff up. That was cool.”
It was also a massive confidence builder.
More self-assured, Love’s best instances of growth started to show up in huge moments.
That January, in Dallas, in a wild-card matchup, the Packers faced a third-and-7 at the end of the second quarter, up 14–0 at the Cowboys’ 20. Dallas had three linebackers well off the ball, creeping up only as the ball was snapped. Love moved the protection, allowing for the line to pick up the two linebackers that actually came with only one extra blocker. That made it six-on-six, allowing for six receivers to release into the route.
And that bought enough time for Love to pop a pretty throw to Dontayvion Wicks, running a skinny post, with Stephon Gilmore, into a vacated deep middle for a touchdown. That made it 20–0, and the Packers didn’t look back, winning 48–32.
“That year,” Love says, “it was just cool for me to be able to do that.”
More success, more responsibility
Last year, in Week 1 against Detroit, there was another third-and-7, this one in the first quarter, with all the schematic mystery that comes in any opener. As the offense lined up, Love could feel safety Brian Branch and linebacker Alex Anzalone creep toward the line of scrimmage, and the secondary start to present a cover-3 look. He saw nickel Amik Robinson dropping off on the opposite side, which told Love that Branch and Anzalone would blitz, and that the coverage might look different postsnap, a little softer, with two guys deep and the middle open.
He switched out of Green Bay’s “jet” protection and looked to Jayden Reed in the slot.
“I made a whole adjustment where I’m not going to get into the details of it, but I pretty much made the perfect call we can make and was able to pick the blitz up,” he said. “And then we had a great route. J-Reed ran a seam out of the slot, I was able to throw it over the top, and drop it in [between the levels of coverage]. But that was cool for me because that’s all the work I put in to be able to figure this stuff out. And then to go out there and make the perfect call versus it and pick up a huge gain as well, it was cool.”
And the accumulation of those moments has led to more responsibility.
Stenavich used to teach his linemen that Rodgers might do four or five things in certain situations, and to be ready for all of them. Love worked to join those discussions, and brought the tight ends into the conversation, too. On top of that, in line coach Luke Butkus’s protection meetings, Love is comfortable taking the lead to explain what he’s seeing and what he wants from the other 10 guys.
So, where five years ago at Arrowhead he was afraid his inexperience was putting his teammates in a position to fail, now he has credibility with them, because they know he’s capable of helping them succeed.
“I think receivers might not even notice some of the time, unless we’ve got a team meeting and coach is talking about, Hey, we’re able to do this,” Love said. “But, yeah, definitely for the O-line, when you’re able to make protection adjustments and get to the right stuff and make sure everyone’s on the same page as well, when you’ve got tight ends adding in protection, just taking ownership of that and making sure everybody’s dialed in, I think those guys definitely appreciate that stuff. It takes some thinking off their plate.
“They don’t have to pass as much stuff off. If you can solidify everything for them, I definitely think guys appreciate that.”
Love’s growth has sustained him
Love’s come a long way from the smooth, athletic, sandlot quarterback he was coming out of the draft.
The three years mostly spent on the bench—the assault on Love at Arrowhead was his only start before officially taking over in 2023—served a purpose. He showed that in his first year as the starter, leading the Packers to the divisional round. And his growth has sustained him since, with Green Bay having made the playoffs in all three of Love’s years as starter.
So if you ask what’s next, as he rounds out his game, you’ll get smaller details. He wants the Packers to be more efficient in scramble situations. He wants to better learn and use the opposing defense’s rules to his advantage. But mostly? He’s just going to keep going.
“It all comes back down to consistency,” Love said. “I always say that all the time. A-Rod, I was able to watch him. It was like every day you know you’re getting the best player in the NFL every single day. And for me, I think it’s always about trying to find that. I have plays in practice that might be good. I have a couple plays that might not be so good. So just trying to find ways to be as consistent as possible. I think when you do that, guys see that.
“Guys are like, Wow, this dude every day is the best player in the building, and he’s still trying to find ways to get better. So I think it’s cleaning that up, and being consistent. Then it comes down to going out there and winning the games and being the guy that’s leading the team and making the right adjustments every time, making the right read every time, and understanding what the defense is doing before they do it.”
And he knows, too, what his story might mean for the next raw young quarterback.
“I definitely look at my story as someone who, from high school to college, even in the NFL, I feel like I was overlooked. I’ve had to work everywhere I went.”Love on his success
Remember, Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert were the guys he was jockeying for position with in the 2020 draft. He started fewer games than each of those guys. They all played at traditional powerhouses in power conferences, and he didn’t. But all along he kept chipping away at it, not content to hear that he had the furthest to go in the group.
He trusted, eventually, that he’d close the gap.
Six years later, he has.
“I hope it motivates people,” he said. “I definitely look at my story as someone who, from high school to college, even in the NFL, I feel like I was overlooked. I’ve had to work everywhere I went. It started in high school. I was a backup. I had to work to get the job and started doing good things. In college, I was a backup. I had to work to get the starting job. Same thing coming to the NFL. So it’s all about just keeping your head down, working, grinding at it, blocking out the noise.
“There’s always going to be noise. There’s always going to be doubters and people preying on your downfall. So block that out and keep that tunnel vision: I gotta stay true to my process, find ways to get better, and keep working and improving every day. Because I think, for me, there’s a lot of other quarterbacks that are like that. You mention Josh Allen, guys that keep putting the work in, keep getting better year after year and never think too highly of themselves, either.
“Be confident in yourself. But don’t be arrogant. Just keep working, keep putting in the small details, you’ll get better.”
Love then reiterated that, yes, he could talk all day about this stuff.
And rightfully so.
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ALBERT BREER
Albert Breer is a senior writer covering the NFL for Sports Illustrated, delivering the biggest stories and breaking news from across the league. He has been on the NFL beat since 2005 and joined SI in 2016. Breer began his career covering the New England Patriots for the MetroWest Daily News and the Boston Herald from 2005 to ’07, then covered the Dallas Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News from 2007 to ’08. He worked for The Sporting News from 2008 to ’09 before returning to Massachusetts as The Boston Globe’s national NFL writer in 2009. From 2010 to 2016, Breer served as a national reporter for NFL Network. In addition to his work at Sports Illustrated, Breer regularly appears on NBC Sports Boston, 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston, FS1 with Colin Cowherd, The Rich Eisen Show and The Dan Patrick Show. A 2002 graduate of Ohio State, Breer lives near Boston with his wife, a cardiac ICU nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital, and their three children.
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