Love's Resilience Is One Of His Most Elite Traits

With 15 passing touchdowns, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is tied with Baker Mayfield for the most in the league (while missing two games). That's pretty neat!

With eight interceptions, Jordan Love is tied with Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew for the most in the league (while missing two games). That's less neat!

After Aaron Rodgers' trademark precision spoiled fans for 18 years, Packers fans are seeing more of a return to the Brett Favre days, when every big throw had a high variance rating.

Love has made some truly head-scratching decisions on some of his interceptions. Still, he's also made some unreal throws, making Green Bay's offense one of the league's most explosive units.

With a season and a half of data, we can confirm that this is who Jordan Love is as a starting quarterback. He's a big-play hunter who isn't afraid to take a shot downfield and let the whims of fate decide the outcome.

Love makes more positive plays than negative ones, which makes it easy to live with that trait. Still, the underrated quality is in Love's resilience. He might occasionally throw the ball to the other team, but it doesn't rattle him. Where many quarterbacks might get into their own heads after a mistake and snowball further, Love bounces back with the same moxie he always displays. Love's ability to stay cool and leap back into the fray after his mistakes is one of his best traits.

It feels like we've come a long way from when Matt LaFleur would say he wanted to see Love “let it rip” more often in his early days as a starter. Well, call the ball a Beyblade because Love is letting it rip.

People criticized Love's deep-ball ability in his first year as a starter. However, in Year 2, we're seeing Love take more chances downfield and connect with his receivers (or sometimes defensive players).

Sunday's victory over the Houston Texans was Love's ninth-straight game with two-plus passing touchdowns. He was 5 for 5 in the red zone with a 136.3 passer rating. That helped lead the Packers to victory despite throwing two picks.

It would be easy to let interceptions cloud a performance, especially against a top AFC defense like the Texans, but Love played some of his best ball after his bad plays.

Love followed up his first interception by completing 11 of his next 13 passes for 103 yards and tossing two TDs, though he threw another interception later.

He showed a similar ability to bounce back in other games this season.

Against the Los Angeles Rams, he went 10 for 15 for 152 yards and two touchdowns after his interception. A week later, he threw an interception and followed up with six completions on 11 throws, 64 yards, and a touchdown.

Love doesn't play it safe after a bad throw or rely on the run game to keep his numbers steady. He continues to take his big shots to lead the Green Bay offense to victory with a gambler's swagger.

“You can’t try to not be aggressive and take check-downs all day," Love said. "You have to be aggressive and go win those games. I’m going to play the way I play, learn from the mistakes, and grow from them.”

It's enough positivity that he has Matt LaFleur's complete trust and support, even in the bad moments.

"That's his superpower,” LaFleur said after the Houston game. "No matter what's happened, whether good or bad, he continues to fight and be resilient. The moment is never too big for him."

Love took the offense down the field to set up Brandon McManus' game-winning field goal.

His best trait will likely never be his completion percentage, which is 61.5%, one of the league's lowest.

Yet they have the seventh-highest scoring offense and fifth-highest offense in terms of yards per play. Love's ability to keep swinging and make the big plays is a massive component of that.

Of course, you’d like to see the interceptions disappear and for Love to complete every pass. But that's not the quarterback Love is, and you live with the rough moments because the highs outweigh them.

The narrative is that we're seeing “more of Favre than Rodgers” from Love this season. But people forget that Favre's playstyle led to many exciting moments. Regardless, Love is his own quarterback. Years of Aaron Rodgers led to Packers fans seeing a precision-based style we may never witness again. Rodgers' ability to take care of the ball, this season notwithstanding, may remain matched long into the future.

Even that style left fans wanting to see Rodgers take more chances with the ball. Now, you have a quarterback who is willing to take those chances. That will lead to more interceptions. But Love's ability to bounce back after interceptions and keep hunting big plays is what makes him such a special quarterback.