How Packers player Jordan Love is preparing for defense in his second year

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Jordan Love is no longer worried about how teams will defend him this year now that they have a full season of film — including two playoff games — to study.

It’s not that the Green Bay Packers quarterback doesn’t expect teams to make up for what made him so successful last season. No doubt the Philadelphia Eagles, who play Green Bay in Brazil in Week 1, and the other teams in the early part of the Packers’ schedule will be going over the record of Love’s 19 starts last season.

It’s because Love and his coaches have their own ideas about how he can shape his game in year two as a starter, and they expect that to be their counterbalance to what he did in year one.

“We know that teams this year are going to have a better sense of what we’re doing and what we’ve done well,” Love said in the offseason. “That’s their job – to figure out how to stop that from happening. I think that’s the exciting thing about the NFL.”

“Ultimately, we have a very good coaching staff that will put us in the best position. Also, we will be able to adapt to what the defense does and what takes away from us, and we will learn on the fly.”

That’s where quarterback coach Tom Clements comes in, the only person who has coached each of the Packers’ last three quarterbacks — Love, Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre. While he can’t say for sure what teams have in store to slow down Love, Clements can give him the skills to fight against whatever defenses might try in 2024.

“It’s just more fundamental things,” Clements said. “Footwork and how he moves in the pocket, and we’re working on the drills, on throwing a lot of routes in the air because you can’t have defenders out there at this point. It’s just about presence in the pocket, when to move, when not to move, things like that.”

To that end, head coach Matt LaFleur added something to offseason workouts that he had opposed in the past: a 7-on-7 period. He never liked it because he thought that without a pass rush, it lacked the authenticity of game-like conditions.

“But we put a lot of emphasis on making sure the feet are perfect,” LaFleur said. “We make sure guys are progressing and have perfect feet. And if they’re not, they hear it. I just think in the offseason, where we are now, in the new defense, it’s important that they understand what drops we expect from them, so we implemented it.”

While that was happening during practices and offseasons, Clements and the Packers’ offensive experts – LaFleur, offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich and passing game coordinator Jason Vrable – spent time anticipating what teams might try to do in defense of Love.

“You could expect the defense to maybe apply a little more pressure, camouflage a little more, make it harder to see where to go,” Clements said. “So that’s a quarterback’s perspective. When that happens, you have to watch the film closely and be able to react.”

“I mean, that was one of Aaron’s (Rodgers) best qualities: He could process information very quickly and usually make the right decision and get the ball where it needed to go. That’s something we’ll have to see how the defense handles it, but you have to be prepared for that.”

According to ESPN Stats & Information, Love completed just 40.6% of his passes under pressure last season and averaged just 4.7 yards per attempt, numbers that rank him 27th and 26th among NFL quarterbacks, respectively.

The fact that Love had the fifth-most air yards per pass attempt and was 23rd in off-target rate under pressure suggests that his default setting may have been to throw the ball far away from coverage. One good sign, however, was that he threw only one interception under pressure, suggesting that he didn’t take unnecessary risks under pressure.

“The most important thing for me is to stay calm and keep my balance in the pocket,” Love said. “Sometimes my feet get out of balance and I might start drifting too much in the pocket. I just have to pay attention to the pocket, make smaller movements and know when to get out of there.”

“Also, throwing on the run, being able to get out of the pocket and make those unplanned plays is something I’ve worked on a lot. Also, it’s just getting comfortable, seeing the defense, going back and watching the video, seeing things I could have done differently by taking protections and things I didn’t do earlier that I was able to recognize later in the season. But I think the biggest thing for me is just the pocket movement, making smaller movements.”

Clements saw some of that towards the end of last season.

“Earlier in the season, when Jordan was rushing, he was running the ball 95 percent of the time,” Clements said. “The second half of the year, maybe it was different – maybe not 95 percent, but a bigger percentage, he was moving and trying to throw the ball forward, which is what you want to do. Because in the rush phase of the game, you can make a lot of big plays. Instead of just running, he’s trying to make a play, and good things can happen. So that’s an example.”