Jordan Love’s debut, a Super Bowl caliber defense, a Toilet Bowl caliber Special Teams.

Packer Special Teams, the other guy’s brake pads:

I’ve been watching football in my sweat pants and criticizing world class athletes for more than 30 years. In that time I have never, NEVER, seen a special teams unit do what the Packer special teams did yesterday. They literally did everything wrong for 3 quarters. They were accountable for a +/- point differential of -9. -9! In a game you lost by 6, on the road, against Patrick Mahomes. In a three phase game; offense, defense, and special teams; you can’t have the unit that’s on the field for the shortest amount of time be -9 in points! Especially when you’ve essentially got a rookie quarterback making his first start. It is incomprehensible how they can be this bad. I’m never one to advocate for someone else losing their job, and I’m not going to start now, but Maurice Drayton: What the hell, dude? How can such simple stuff seem so difficult for this unit? I don’t even need them to be good, just be SERVICEABLE. Field punts cleanly with a fair catch. Get the football set laces out for a field goal. LACES OUT, DAN. It was infuriating to watch, particularly when the defense is playing it’s ass off and Jordan Love is battling to get on track on the road.

• Jordan Love: In my unexpert opinion I would grade him a C-. Clearly nervous at the beginning of the game, definitely got more comfortable/better by the 4th quarter. Accuracy was a problem for him in college, and it was a problem at times yesterday. He didn’t deal well with the relentless pressure, but I guess what can you expect from a young quarterback making his first start. We’re so used to watching Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers over the past 30 years that it’s hard to remember what a young quarterback looks like dealing with an NFL blitz. Rodgers is a 3-time MVP with 15 years of experience. He can diagnose a blitz in his sleep. Granted, defenses don’t blitz him much because they know they’re more likely to pay than not. But Rodgers can identify it, and get the ball out quickly. He knows where everyone is on the field at all times. There’s no way you can expect that from Love at this point in his career. He just doesn’t have the experience.
• ^That said, for the first 3 quarters he wasn’t getting much help. The offensive line STUNK. The playcalling STUNK. And LaFleur copped to that in his post game presser. The Aaron Jones/AJ Dillon combo rushed for 122 yards on 25 carries, almost 5 yards per carry. How were they not used more? Love was making his first start in a tough, loud, road environment. Lean on the running game to not only take some of the pressure off of him (literally and figuratively), but to also get the offensive line on track. The lack of run calls early made no sense.
•  Nice to see that the Chiefs got seats for Jordan Love’s mom and girlfriend on the surface of the moon:

• I guess I’m always hesitant to make any sweeping declarations about the Packer defense being good, but to hell with it: This defense is good. They did EVERYTHING they could to keep this team in the game. I realize this Chiefs offense isn’t the juggernaut it was the past two seasons, but it’s still Patrick Mahomes, and it’s still Travis Kelce, and it’s still Tyreek Hill. They only gave up 13 points, and 3 were gifted on that Malik Taylor muffed punt. One of the most complete defensive performances since the 2010 unit that was ranked #1 in the league.
• Speaking of, I know a LOT of people that should go back to their Facebook and Twitter posts about Rashan Gary on draft night in 2019 and scrub them. Dude is a beast. Constantly brings pressure.
• De’Vondre Campbell was solid again, but Krys Barnes yesterday was a heat seeking missile. The guy was EVERYWHERE. Filling gaps, and hitting hard. Health is always going to be the issue with him, but the Barnes/Campbell combo up the middle is very exciting.
• Keep in mind, this defense is doing it without Za’Darius Smith, without Jaire Alexander, and they lost their #2 corner, Eric Stokes, before kickoff yesterday. And Kenny Clark went down and did not return. Honestly pretty remarkable.
• Amari Rodgers needs to be done as the punt returner. Put Randall Cobb back there. I can already see the Rodgers muffed punt in a close playoff game. It can be avoided: AVOID IT.

Overall I don’t think you can make any definitive statements about Jordan Love’s future based on yesterday’s results. He looked bad in spots, he looked okay in spots, he didn’t deal well with pressure. Pretty much what you’d expect from a guy with ZERO experience. Remember what Rodgers looked like when he took snaps in regular season games in 2005 and 2006?? HORRIBLE. We thought we were screwed whenever Favre decided to retire. It wasn’t until that Dallas game in 2007 when he came in for Favre that we thought, ‘well, maybe this kid can do something.’ I don’t expect that Love will be starting this Sunday against the Seahawks, but if he were to, I bet we would see some improvements in the way the game is called, and the way he handles pressure. It’s going to take time. Unfortunately for the Packers, they need to figure out what they need to do with him and Rodgers by the end of this season. I’m not sure what Gutey and LaFleur and the rest of the hierarchy take from his performance yesterday, but we won’t know that until next March.

Related: If Rodgers plays yesterday, and the defense plays exactly the way it did, the Packers win this game in a rout. I think that’s what I’ll choose to take from yesterday in the short term. This defense looks legit, and if your reigning MVP can stay on the field, they’re going to be in GREAT shape come playoff time. Plus, the Cowboys lost, the Rams lost, and the Vikings lost. You lost no ground in the division, and hardly any ground in the race for the #1 seed. The Cardinals won so you’re a game behind them again, but you have the tiebreaker, which hopefully will be a factor in the last week of the season. On to Seattle.

PS: We’re not going to get into the Pat McAfee/Rodgers interview from Friday. Some people are going to champion Rodgers for making a medical choice for himself, some are going to call him a crazy person for consulting Joe Rogan on important health decisions. Neither side is going to convince the other side of anything at this point, so it’s wasted breath/text.

Double PS: This was funny though: