Packers QB Jordan Love evades questions about a contract extension

Is no news good news?

Or should Packer Nation be worried?

Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love hosted a football camp for kids in Milwaukee on Tuesday for the bargain price of $199. During the four hours Love spent at the University School, he threw countless footballs, took photos and mingled with the roughly 600 participants.

What Love did not do was answer questions about a possible contract extension.

Love is entering the final year of his contract, and both he and the Packers would like to get something done before the regular season begins. However, when Love was asked about a contract extension during training camp, one of his PR staff quickly intervened and ended the interview.

“Nope,” yelled Love’s handler. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Nope, nope, nope, nope.”

Love then left the small group of reporters with a smile on her face.

The Packers’ training camp begins July 22, but the quarterbacks will be among the first players to report on Wednesday. Since Love was in Wisconsin for a football camp on Tuesday, it would be a surprise if he didn’t report to camp on Wednesday.

However, getting a deal done remains a tricky proposition for both Love and the Packers. Love made his first start in 2023, struggled early on but then played extremely well in the second half of the season as Green Bay won six of its final eight games.

Counting the playoffs, Love started all 19 games, throwing 37 touchdown passes and just 13 interceptions. During a two-month window between Week 11 and Green Bay’s NFC divisional playoff game at San Francisco, Love threw a remarkable 23 touchdowns and just one interception – something legendary Green Bay quarterbacks Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers never accomplished.

Love completed 409 of 634 passes (64.5%) for 4,625 yards and finished with a passer rating of 98.5. By comparison, Rodgers threw 28 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in his first year as a starter in 2008 and finished with a passer rating of 93.8.

“He’s had an insanely good year,” Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur said of Love. “Seeing his development … obviously the results speak for themselves, but his development as a commander out there, he’s an extension of us, and I think the ownership that he’s shown, the leadership that he’s shown has been a great sign for us.”

After nine games, Love had thrown 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Then, as his young wide receivers matured and Love developed better chemistry with that group, his game took off.

Love’s passer rating exceeded 108.0 in eight of his last 10 games, and in four of those his rating was at least 125.0. He also had three touchdown passes and no interceptions in four games.

The crown jewel came in Love’s first playoff game, when he led the Packers to a 48-32 victory over host Dallas. Once again, Love threw three touchdowns, no interceptions, and his passer rating of 157.2 was just 1.1 shy of the highest mark a quarterback can reach.

“It’s been so much fun playing with that guy all year,” Packers center Josh Myers said of Love. “I can’t say enough about the work he’s done. He’s made my life so much easier. When he came in and started his first year, he just did an incredible job. I felt like we settled in great and just continued to grow as the season went on.”

However, determining the value of love will not be easy.

Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence both signed five-year, $275 million deals last year and have the NFL’s highest average annual salary at $55 million per year. Detroit’s Jared Goff ($53 million AAV), the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert ($52.5 million AAV), Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson ($52 million AAV) and Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts ($51 million AAV) also surpassed the $50 million mark.

Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City has the largest total contract at $450 million over 10 years.

Love could easily break the $50 million mark, but what makes his deal so difficult is the fact that he doesn’t have the body of work that the others in that stratosphere have.

On the other hand, Love may have more potential than anyone in this group other than Mahomes.

“Playing in the NFL, especially being a quarterback in the NFL, is not easy,” Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy told reporters on Tuesday. “But it’s a credit to Jordan how he persevered and kept getting better. At the end of the season, he was obviously playing at a very high level.”