news-engine

Now More Than Ever, It's Time To Let Jordan Love Cook Ladies and gentlemen, the stage is set. It’s No. 10’s show now. The Green Bay Packers enter the 2026 season with plenty of uncertainty in their running back room. Josh Jacobs is on the Commissioner’s Exempt List and cannot practice or attend games while on it, MarShawn Lloyd is essentially a rookie, and Kaleb Johnson just arrived on the team. Meanwhile, Chris Brooks is a solid third-stringer whose biggest highlights have come as a pass blocker. As a result, Green Bay doesn’t have a proven every-down runner it can consistently lean on in the run game. For years, the Packers have leaned on the run game to support Love. Last season, they were among the league’s least aggressive teams on early downs through the air, consistently calling runs on first and second down more than 50% of the time. However, this might finally be the year Matt LaFleur gives Love a larger role in the offense. And honestly, that should be great news for Green Bay.. Since 2023, when Love became the full-time starter, he ranks third among all quarterbacks in both EPA per play and adjusted EPA per play, trailing only Brock Purdy and NFL MVP Josh Allen. EPA measures how much a quarterback improves his team’s expected points on each play, accounting for factors like down, distance, field position, and game situation. In other words, it shows how much value a quarterback creates with each play. Love has maintained that efficiency despite playing with the league’s youngest supporting cast in 2023 and dealing with knee and groin injuries in 2024. Then, in 2025, he played behind an offensive line that had the worst pass-blocking performance of any Packers OL over the past decade. Yet he has still been statistically a top-five quarterback over that span. Last season, Love was elite both from and outside the pocket. He was the NFL’s top quarterback from a clean pocket and against the blitz, while also ranking first on third down. The wild part is that the Packers simply haven’t given him the volume to match that level of efficiency. For context, Love ranked just 17th in pass attempts in 2024 and 18th in 2025. That volume is low even accounting for the multiple games he missed over the past two seasons. At this point, you might be wondering, “But wouldn’t that efficiency naturally decline if his volume increased?” That’s a fair question because efficiency often declines when a quarterback’s workload increases. However, Love has already shown he can maintain his efficiency while handling a heavy workload. In 2023, he finished sixth in pass attempts. He also ranked fifth in EPA per play and sixth in adjusted EPA per play. The Packers need to build the offense around their best player. I don’t expect them to abandon the run because that isn’t how offenses from the Shanahan tree are built. The goal is to establish the run, create opportunities for play-action, and use linebackers’ reactions to open up the middle of the field. But that approach depends on defenses respecting the run. If Green Bay can’t consistently run the ball, it might have to reverse-engineer the offense and establish an efficient passing game first. A strong passing game would force defenses to play softer, keep fewer defenders in the box, and rely more on two-high shells. Even if defenses start expecting the pass, Love has shown he can still make them pay. The Packers ranked 21st in rushing EPA last season, so the run game wasn’t particularly effective. Yet Love still ranked third in completion percentage over expected, second in EPA per play, seventh in success rate, and sixth in air yards. That could also create more favorable opportunities for MarShawn Lloyd and the rest of the running back room. Giving Love more volume would take some pressure off the backs, especially because we don’t know how Lloyd and company would handle a large number of touches. It really doesn’t seem to matter what Love has around him. Give him a bad offensive line, a young supporting cast, or an injury, and he still finds a way to produce like one of the league’s best quarterbacks. The running back situation might finally force the Packers to make him the centerpiece of the offense. If the rest of the offense has too many question marks, why not let Love be the guy who makes up for those deficiencies? And honestly, doesn’t that sound a lot like what Aaron Rodgers used to do? When the offense around him wasn’t good enough, Rodgers often had to be the guy who made things happen. Maybe Love is entering that phase of his career, too. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHEESEHEAD NATION WEEKLY NEWSLETTER HERE. __________________________ Felipe is a Brazilian Packers writer covering the #GoPackGo for CheeseheadTV, Zone Coverage, and Packers Talk. Additionally, he contributes to Cheeseheads Brazil. Follow him on twitter at @Aceti_Felipe. __________________________ Comments (5) September 03, 2026 at 02:20 pm "Let Jordan Love cook" I feel like I've heard this before. September 03, 2026 at 02:26 pm I did. MLF said it as a joke. I hope he changes his mind about that. I mean, maybe our O line will be better than we fear. Maybe our RB room can be utilized in a way that gets in sync with the line? That sure would help. Going to have to establish the passing game to set up the run game for success this season, IMHO. September 03, 2026 at 02:23 pm love's attempt are low ONLY because of his missed games. you're way off the mark