Preview focus: Green Bay has a bright future with its young roster
The Green Bay Packers’ general manager, Brian Gutekunst, met with the media on November 1st of last year. It wasn’t a victory lap; the team was 2-5 and had averaged 15.6 points over the five games prior. In Jordan Love’s rookie season, he had a passer rating
of 78.2 and a completion percentage of 57.7%—both unacceptable numbers for a regular starting quarterback. We all know how the rest of the story ends, but on that day, Love’s future with the Packers was very much in doubt. “I think we’ve got 10 games
left,” Gutekunst said. “It’s going to be a very important 10 games.” Gutekunst also mentioned Love’s ability to handle adversity and perform well during games.
If we saw Love’s true level over the last half of the season, the Packers are set up remarkably well. The Packers were the youngest team in the NFL last season, and they finished 6-2 in the regular season,
won a playoff game at Dallas, and led at San Francisco until the 49ers scored a touchdown with 1:07 remaining. The Packers followed that up with a solid offseason. It’s possible that Love caught a hot
- streak and he’ll have a hard time replicating it. But Love was so good, it doesn’t seem like it was a mirage.
