Packers prez - To take 'half a season' to tell about Jordan Love - ESPN

GREEN BAY, Wis. — All offseason, the Green Bay Packers preached patience with new starting quarterback Jordan Love. That was the mantra with everyone from general manager Brian Gutekunst to coach Matt LaFleur and even some players.

Patience now has a timeline, at least for how long it might take to find out whether Love can extend the Packers' 30-year run of MVP-level quarterback play from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers and beyond or if they will have to search for another quarterback perhaps as early as next offseason.

«I'm comparing it a little bit to Aaron's first year as a starter, yeah I'd say at least half a season to know,» Packers president Mark Murphy said Monday. «And I think even though we ended up with a losing record that year, but we saw enough of Aaron to know that we had something special.»

While the Packers were 6-10 in Rodgers' first season as a starter in 2008, halfway through the season the team had seen enough in him to warrant a contract extension. Rodgers threw for more than 4,000 yards and 28 touchdowns that season. Love already had his rookie contract extended; this offseason, he signed a deal that runs through the 2024 season. The deal essentially replaced the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.

Like Rodgers, Love spent his first three NFL seasons as a backup. Love has one NFL start to his credit, which is one more than Rodgers had when he took over for Favre. Love was the hand-picked successor to Rodgers back in 2020, when Gutekunst traded up to take Love at No. 26 overall in the draft.

«He was highly criticized when he drafted Jordan Love,» Murphy said of Gutekunst earlier on Monday during his address to Packers' shareholders. «That draft though now put us in a position where we feel we