'Go time:' Packers QB Jordan Love poised to emerge from Aaron Rodgers' shadow

I. The trade

GREEN BAY − Three years after his career was cast inside a Hall of Famer’s shadow, Jordan Love awoke on the final Monday of April hoping for the best, dismissing the worst, eager for his last day as the backup.

A change at the Green Bay Packers quarterback position had been a long time coming. It felt even longer for Love. The transition from franchise legend to, well, him was a long march, but it headed toward the inevitable.

Still, he waited. And waited. And …

It’d taken five weeks for papers finalizing a trade to be signed and turned into the NFL office. Love doesn’t remember what he was doing on an otherwise quiet morning when his phone rang. His agent was on the other line, informing him the Packers were starting over, sending Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets.

Love was at the epicenter, a place he’s quite familiar with. He’s been the backdrop to everything these past three years. The resurgence. The rift. The split. People close to him, his former coaches, teammates, friends back home in Bakersfield, California, have learned allowing space is best. Life isn’t easy in NFL purgatory.

On the final Monday in April, the text messages came rushing in, one after another.

“My phone,” he says, “started blowing up.”

Before Love stepped into meetings with Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur, a college coach sent his congratulations. “It’s time,” the coach added. “Finally.”

Love stared at his phone, considered the realities awaiting him as a starting quarterback for a franchise defined by its starting quarterbacks, and punched back two words.

“Go time.”

II. The draft pick

Two weeks after the trade, Jordan Love stepped to a podium inside Lambeau Field wearing a Packers pullover. He spoke confidently. Secure in his role. Nobody waited for this introduction more than him.

“It seemed like a while,” Love says, “looking back on it.”

Love has been an enigma these past three seasons, the impetus for a turbulent end to one of the Packers’ glory eras, and the reason there’s hope for another. Quarterbacks with his pedigree don’t venture this deep into a career avoiding the spotlight. They are forged under the pressure of carrying a franchise. Exposed, dissected, their flaws picked apart. Love heard his name called on draft night and stepped into an abyss. Three years later, there is more to discover about him than what is already known.

His most impressive quality, to date, is not the arm talent that made him a first-round pick, but the patience most first-round picks never need.

“It’s hard,” Love says, unloading for the first time what it was like inside Rodgers’ shadow. “When I got drafted here, I knew right away exactly what position I would be put in, who I was being behind. I knew it was going to come with time.”

Love walked a tightrope in blind faith, believing a breakthrough waited on the other side. The Packers might have squeezed every drop out of the Rodgers era, but they always saw their future in his understudy. David Yost, Love’s offensive coordinator at Utah State, remembers LaFleur peppering him with questions before the 2020 draft. It was the height of a pandemic, when travel was grounded to a halt, preventing scouts from doing their usual homework in person.

LaFleur reconnected with his colleague that spring through a Packers staffer who once worked for Yost. The two coaches go back almost a decade, to their days on college football’s recruiting trail, when LaFleur oversaw quarterbacks at Notre Dame and Yost was an assistant at Washington State. “We’re not hanging out,” Yost says, “but we have a colleague, work-type relationship.” LaFleur spent almost an hour asking about Love on their first call, rudimentary questions, shielding his interest. Yost thought of it as due diligence. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then LaFleur kept texting. He called twice more before the draft, narrowing his questions. LaFleur could see Love’s athleticism and arm talent on film. He wanted to learn everything there was to know about Love’s makeup, aware a first-round quarterback would be entering a crucible unlike any other in the league.

When the Packers traded up four spots in the draft, Yost sensed the selection that would rock the NFL as commissioner Roger Goodell held the 26th pick. The Packers were about to name Rodgers’ heir apparent.

“I was like, ‘Green Bay’s serious about him, because the head coach is not calling on every guy in that way,’” Yost says. “In that time, Aaron was kind of – from the outside – OK, he’s getting older. He’s not been the same guy he had been when he was younger. Then they take Jordan and kind of pissed him off, and he became a great player again.

“It kind of worked out. I know it was a first-round pick, but you got two MVPs out of the guy, so it was probably a good pick just for that.”

Love is in the spotlight now, stepping to the forefront of this next chapter in Packers history. He’s more than a quarterback. There is a symbiotic relationship between his position and a fan base unlike any other. Love is the most important employee in a multibillion-dollar business. The face of an entire state. Childhood memories hinge on what happens after the football leaves his hand. Careers will be defined.

Everyone will want a piece of him, testing whether he can meet the expectations of his new role, withstanding the pressure of carrying a franchise.

“It’s going to be a progression,” LaFleur says.

On that final Monday last April, almost three years after the day he was drafted, Love woke up to a different world. By the time he stepped to the podium a couple of weeks later, he’d already laid the groundwork.

III. The transition

On the day Rodgers informed the world he intended to play with the Jets, Aaron Jones sent his new starting quarterback a text message.

The star running back had been one of the most vocal advocates for Rodgers early this offseason, pitching the four-time MVP on why he should return to Green Bay. “Come back to the Packers,” Jones pleaded on national television. “We’ve got everything we need. We’re right there.” One week later, on March 15, Rodgers told The Pat McAfee Show he requested a trade. Jones pivoted, reaching for his phone to schedule a training session with his new starter.

“The writing was on the wall,” Jones says. “So I was like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to get these reps.’”

In March, Jones flew to Santa Ana, California, to spend a day and a half with Love. They practiced on a high school field under the supervision of Love’s longtime personal coach, Steve Calhoun. Jones ran through the entire route tree, not as a running back, but a receiver. They broke routes in half, working the release off the line of scrimmage, then the top. Only after both sections were polished, Jones ran the full route as designed. Slants. Outs. Over the shoulder. Over and over again. “We threw at least 100 balls,” Jones says. After the workout, Love drove his running back around the area, showing his offseason home.

They bonded over music, dinner and a scare earlier in the day. As Love started throwing passes, the school’s physical education teacher came rushing onto the field. The campus was on lockdown, he said. An active shooter was reported. Love and Jones grabbed their things and relocated drills to another high school.

The session signified a departure from the past. Rodgers, often absent for offseason workouts in Green Bay, resisted making arrangements with teammates to train on his own time. His offseasons were secluded, intensely personal. As he prepared to step into the starting job, Love began coalescing his offense.

If there’s a sense of déjà vu this offseason, a connection to when the Packers transitioned from Brett Favre to Rodgers, it starts with how quickly teammates rallied around their new quarterback. Fifteen years ago, teammates saw the barbs Rodgers withstood from Favre, the cold shoulder, how he became the punchline to jokes. They had Rodgers’ back.

Rodgers’ treatment of Love, from all accounts, was markedly better than what he received from Favre, a lesson in not letting history repeat mistakes. “I don’t think there was ever anything bad between them,” Love’s longtime best friend and former Packers teammate Krys Barnes says. In private conversations, Love credited his predecessor for being willing to teach, receptible to questions, something Rodgers didn’t receive from Favre. Not long after he was traded, Rodgers called Love. If he needed anything, Rodgers told his replacement, he was still available to help.

The gauntlet since draft night was no less daunting. “Jordan has been put in some tough situations,” Gutekunst says. Love weathered Rodgers’ resurgence, the uncomfortable war of silence between Rodgers and the franchise that following spring, the resulting organizational reshuffle that gave Rodgers an amplified voice in the front office, the contract extension that made Rodgers the highest-paid player in NFL history.

“I’ll admit,” Love says, “I think the hardest time was when he signed the contract last year.”

Love started one game on four days’ notice in 2021 after Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19. A primetime kickoff inside one of the NFL’s loudest stadiums. Patrick Mahomes was on the other sideline. You remember Love’s deer-in-the-headlights expression as the Kansas City Chiefs defense blitzed down after down, bewildering a young quarterback in his debut.

Through it all, Love didn’t complain once. Teammates marveled at his resolve.

“We all have huge respect for him,” Jones says at his locker. “Any quarterback drafted in the first round wants to come in and play right away. To be able to sit there and just learn, have no problems, give anybody no problems, not say any of the wrong things, not be in the media for any of the wrong things, just be a positive guy day in and day out, be a great teammate, you can’t do anything but cheer for a guy like that.”

Love’s steadiness can be traced long before professional football was in his future. To find it, travel back 10 years and two weeks, to a summer basketball tournament, and the tragedy that molded him.

IV. The composure

It was the last game of the last tournament on the summer basketball circuit. A.J. Shearon ushered his team into the postgame huddle, but he was missing one player.

Jordan Love had left in a hurry.

“That’s kind of weird,” Shearon thought. “Hopefully everything is OK.”

Earlier that day, Orbin Love pulled into the gym as his son warmed up in the layup line. Dad was at every sporting event, even volunteering as an assistant coach on his son’s youth football team. Before practices, the two would play catch on the sideline. Jordan was a running back in those days, a good athlete who was undersized but ran circles around the defense. There was something about his son’s spiral, or a father’s intrinsic belief, or maybe how Orbin was pushed to running back once he arrived at Bakersfield College, after being a high school quarterback.

Orbin insisted his son play quarterback. He trained him for it. And when he wanted something, Orbin made sure it happened.

“Very firm,” is how Lucas Rivera, Love’s teammate from youth league through high school, describes Orbin. “He was a good coach, good guy, but once practice started, he wasn’t a guy you wanted to test at all.”

Nothing could keep Orbin from his son’s games. On this day, July 13, 2013, Orbin excused himself from the gym. He’d recently changed his blood pressure medication. One of the new prescription's side effects was erratic behavior. Spiraling, he drove home.

Orbin, a sergeant in the Bakersfield Police Department, died by suicide while his son finished the game. In the local newspaper, his death was listed as a “medical demon,” emphasizing how abnormal the end of Orbin’s life was from the way he lived.

As the postgame huddle broke, the team made plans to celebrate its season with a swim party. Brandon Gonzalez, Love’s basketball teammate from childhood through high school, called his friend. When Love didn’t pick up, Gonzalez was concerned. “It was uncommon,” Gonzalez says, “for Jordan not to answer someone’s phone call.” News quickly spread through Bakersfield in the following days. Love’s team rerouted plans.

Instead of a pool, they met at a church.

“We all attended the funeral as a team,” Shearon says, “and at that point, it was really a wait-and-see kind of thing. It was summer ball. We just kind of talked about, ‘Is he going to show up to football? Is he going to show up to basketball?’”

Love didn’t miss a single practice when his football team opened camp a month later. Gonzalez remembers seeing his friend walk the school hallways, sit in class, unable to fathom his grief. “I don’t know, if I had gone through that,” Gonzalez says, “(if) I could have still been at a football practice or basketball game.” Orbin’s only son matured quickly after his father’s death, friends say. Barnes can’t remember the words Love spoke when he eulogized his father at the funeral, only how eloquently they were spoken, how impossibly composed his friend stood in front of the auditorium.

He was a teenager entering adulthood overnight.

“There’s nothing that can prepare you for that type of situation,” Barnes says, “but I remember him even in that situation kind of carrying himself in a manner that was well beyond his years. Just how he carried himself through the whole process of that grieving, it was different. It’s difficult, but he handled it so well that I think it kind of prepared him for any difficult moment to come across him.”

Love’s focus intensified after losing his father, friends say. Swim parties gave way to training. Love occasionally would tag along on Gonzalez’s family vacations, but now he stayed home for practice. During sleepovers, he was the kid who told friends to quiet down late at night. Bedtime meant getting sleep.

“What he did and how he processed those things,” Shearon says, “I reflect on it frequently when I’m watching him or reading about him. I reflect on how it could have gone a different way. How many kids I’ve worked with over the years who have had a traumatic experience, and had it go a different way. He just essentially doubled down on his progression, on his greatness, on the work.”

Love entered high school as a receiver and punt returner, still undersized at 5-foot-6. Bryan Nixon was hired as Liberty High’s coach before Love’s sophomore season. By then, Love had shot up to almost 5-11. Nixon made him a quarterback. “He was raw with the position,” Nixon says, “but he was very athletic, and just football savvy.”

Love didn’t elevate to varsity until his junior season. Friday nights became marquee events at Liberty. Its stadium was filled each week.

“The games were insane,” Gonzalez says. “He brought a real buzz to our town.”

Barnes, a linebacker, was the star of those teams. He eventually got a scholarship to UCLA, staying close to home. Love’s emergence as a starter came too late for college recruiters to notice. He threw for 296 yards and three touchdowns in a section title game win against Clovis High as a senior, but major programs had filled their recruiting classes.

Shearon wondered if Love’s path might drift toward basketball, but he never expected it. Football was in his blood. During a summer camp at Cal State Bakersfield after his junior year, Love streaked down the court, finishing a fastbreak with a poster dunk. “That kind of shut the gym down,” Shearon says. “Everybody heard it, saw it, turned to look.” A week later, Cal State Bakersfield’s basketball coach called Shearon. He wanted to know about the kid with the poster dunk.

“He’s a football guy,” Shearon told the coach.

Jordan Love was going to be the quarterback dad knew he would be.

V. The quarterback

Love entered his second season at Utah State with a chance to win the starting job. He redshirted the year before, memorizing the playbook, getting stronger, exercising his patience. When camp opened, the quarterback competition was fierce. Love entered practice trying to assert himself immediately.

He was tense. Erratic. A conundrum for his coaches.

“He was trying to win the job with every throw,” Yost says, “and trying to prove it. He’d had a good summer, had a good spring, and I think felt, ‘OK, I have a chance to win the job.’ So he tried to win the job the first pass of fall camp.”

It almost backfired.

By the end of his first scrimmage, Utah State coaches wondered if Love might be their third quarterback. He relaxed after that, playing better as he played looser, sticking to his progressions instead of targeting a big play every snap. His passes became crisp but feathery, more catchable.

Yost knew an NFL-caliber quarterback when he saw one. A year before the Aggies hired him, he coached Justin Herbert as a freshman at Oregon. Herbert, an instant starter in college, was destined for NFL greatness. He remembers Herbert opening his freshman camp at the bottom of Oregon’s roster, running with the fourth string, making them look like starters.

In Love, Yost recognized the same potential, even if the two quarterbacks were more different than alike. Herbert threw the same pass every time, no matter the route or depth. He just threw better than anyone else. “It’s not a fastball,” Yost says. “He never looks like he throws it as hard as he can, but he throws it 50 yards.” Love’s arsenal was more diversified. He had a fastball. He could layer throws between linebackers and safeties. When it was time to throw deep, Love launched.

“I enjoyed coaching Jordan,” Yost says, “because he was really aggressive with the ball down the field. Which I would rather have that than a guy you have to push to get the ball down the field. He’s not a naturally protecting or, ‘Oh, I don’t want to make a mistake,’ kind of guy. He’s more of an ‘I’m going to try to make something happen all the time.’

“He’s got some plus arm talent that way that I think will surprise people.”

When Herbert entered the 2020 draft, Yost wondered how a team would rally around him as a franchise quarterback. He’d always made the position look easy. A natural, especially with Herbert’s reserved personality, can come off as aloof. For all the uncertainties with Love, the unknown of how he will guide an NFL locker room, Yost never questioned his leadership. “When you saw a group of football players together," Yost says, "there was Jordan.” Love’s confidence, his composure, is infectious.

“He has this thing about him,” Barnes says, “where he’s able to bring people around him that he interacts with closer to him, and make you want to play with him. He’s going to war with you every day at practice. He’s making you better.”

At Utah State, Love didn’t start until midway through his second season. He catapulted to 32 touchdowns with only six interceptions a year later, leading the Aggies to an 11-2 record. One loss came by a touchdown at Michigan State, a Big Ten opponent and heavy favorite. In the other, a trip to Boise State, Love led an 83-yard touchdown drive to pull within 2 points late in the game. “Jordan made everyone else better,” Yost says, “because we were not that good. I mean, we won 11 games with him, and we were not an 11-win team.”

Utah State’s coaching staff left for Texas Tech before Love’s final season. Love struggled in a new offense, surrounded by mostly inexperienced teammates, and threw 20 touchdowns with 17 interceptions. The Aggies won just seven games.

When the Packers drafted Love, Yost expected his entry into the NFL wouldn’t be easy with Rodgers implanted as starter, but thought it was a good fit. Love had the talent to play as a rookie, Yost says. His journey, the stops and starts along the way, how he learned by watching, conditioned him to benefit from a backup role.

“I’ve had some other guys,” Yost says, “they would’ve gone in and couldn’t have handled being a two. … They would’ve went in, they would’ve been a two, and they wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it. They would’ve still been a rookie the next year. Because they would’ve been, ‘If I’m not playing, I’m not getting any better.’

“I thought he would have been the one guy I’ve coached that it would help him to not play, because he would take advantage of it.”

VI. The ascension

Each offseason starts the same. Groans inside Steve Calhoun’s living room. The growing pains of a developing quarterback.

On Calhoun’s 80-inch screen, Love and his longtime personal coach study each snap, starting with the preseason. End zone angle. Front angle. Sideline. They examine every play from 360 degrees, missing nothing.

Love started training with Calhoun when he was 14 years old. A former quarterback at New Mexico State, Calhoun spent a decade in the German Football League before becoming a coach. Check his Instagram, and there’s a picture of him sandwiched between the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli. His son, Nik Needham, is a cornerback for the Miami Dolphins. NFL receivers Keenan Allen, Robert Woods and Tyler Lockett have attended his football camp, Armed and Dangerous.

Romeo Doubs started working with Calhoun before his senior season in college. Nobody knows his new quarterback better. It’s a change, Doubs says, transitioning from Rodgers to a first-time starter. His confidence in Love has been earned not only in practice, but for years in those summer sessions.

“He’s that guy,” Doubs says. “He can roll out, back spinning, throw the ball. I’ve seen his throwing arm. I’ve seen what he can do. He can do it all.”

Love hasn’t always been that guy. Calhoun remembers the teenage quarterback before he cracked varsity, before the growth spurt, when Love was unsteady. “He looked like a baby deer just born,” Calhoun says. “Little wobbly legs, trying to get his balance, trying to find his way.” In hot California summers, Love built the framework for an NFL career. The blueprint, Calhoun calls it. Their training sessions intensified when Love was drafted.

“I prepare him,” Calhoun says, “to be the starter. We’re going through different scenarios that we may see. He has to match that footwork to the different pressures that he may see, from an outside linebacker coming, or a corner coming, or a free safety. Whatever situation.”

The groans were never louder than last offseason. When Love’s second year in the NFL ended, he convened in Calhoun’s living room defeated but determined. After the preseason tape, they watched his uncomfortable debut against the Chiefs. “It was a little bit painful,” Calhoun says. Love was brutalized that night, hit seven times. He completed only 19 of 34 passes for 190 yards, a 69.5 passer rating. His lone touchdown didn’t come until the fourth quarter.

The debut reminded Yost of that first camp when a starting job was on the line at Utah State.

“It looked like he was tight,” Yost says. “Like, ‘I’m trying to prove to everybody I’m good.’ And I know they were trying to protect him. You could tell. They weren’t trying to put him out there to have a bad day, but he just looked real tight. His arm, everything about him looked all tied up.”

With Calhoun, Love rewired his throwing mechanics last offseason. They started with his footwork. Balance creates accuracy, Calhoun says. Love jumped rope, synching his legs with his hips, hips with his shoulders. Kansas City was a reminder throwing the football starts with calm feet, firm ankles.

Once Love’s platform was rebuilt, he didn’t miss. Calhoun structures Love’s workouts into 90-minute sessions, writing a game plan for each. They throw three days a week, about 15 sessions during an offseason. Two years ago, working with Doubs before his rookie season, Love mastered the deep-over route that had been elusive. Balance was the emphasis after Kansas City. If Love tossed 100 passes in a session, rapid fire, he might miss three. “I’m just like, ‘Holy smokes,’” Calhoun says. “He really understands now.”

Calhoun knew a year ago Love was ready to start. A decade of infrastructure was complete. When camp opened last season, Love looked like a different quarterback. On time. In rhythm. In practices, Barnes says, Love would emulate Rodgers. He started unfurling no-look passes, showing how well he not only knew LaFleur’s playbook, but can control his eyes.

“He definitely got me a couple times,” Barnes says, sheepishly. “He’s perfecting his manipulation with his eyes. I think that’s something Aaron Rodgers does very well, where he knows where he wants to go with the ball, he knows the routes, he knows the coverage, even presnap. He’s able to move guys off the spot in certain areas, and he’s able to fit it in. So for (Love) to be able to move guys, and not just be stuck on certain receivers, and kind of show them the way, that’s huge for him.

“He’s got some stuff in his arsenal now. He’s got some tricks up his sleeve. He’s definitely taken a couple courses from A-Rod’s handbook.”

When Love got his chance last year, it came with less than four days’ notice. Rodgers trudged to the locker room in Week 12, ribs tender after taking one too many hits, early fourth quarter in Philadelphia. For 11 minutes, Love carved up the Eagles. On his first pass, he looked right, looked left, found nobody open, and dumped it off to AJ Dillon. His second, on third-and-5, hit Allen Lazard at the marker on the right sideline for first down.

His third connected with Christian Watson in stride on a slant, leading the receiver for a 63-yard touchdown.

His fifth, a perfect back-shoulder fade to Jones down the right sideline, split his running back’s hands, incomplete.

“I dropped it,” Jones says. “It won’t happen again, but it was on me. It was a dime.”

With the Eagles protecting their lead in a prevent defense, Love completed 6 of 9 passes for 113 yards, one touchdown and a 146.8 rating. It mirrored what Barnes had seen in practice, what Yost saw at Utah State. It also may have signaled an end to the Rodgers era. That night, Love showed he was hot on the aging MVP’s heels.

His joy after the game was muted. If Love doesn’t get rattled when things go bad, he isn’t known to celebrate much either. Especially after a loss. Leaving Philadelphia, Calhoun noticed a quiet confidence.

Love had regained his composure.

“He felt good that the organization knows they can count on him,” Calhoun says. “Like, ‘OK, I proved not only to the Green Bay fans, but I proved to my teammates, and to my front office, that I can help us win ballgames.’ That’s what being a No. 2 is. It shouldn’t be a big drop off.

“I think he showed that, OK, there’s not much of a drop off. He can get it done if Aaron is not ready to go at some point in time.”

VII. The starter

On the first Thursday of June, in the waning practices of OTAs, Love is moving the Packers in a 2-minute drill. He dumps a slant route to Jones for 6 yards. A couple of completions to Doubs, crossing midfield. A quick pass over the middle to Dillon.

There are 24 seconds on the clock, no timeouts. Ball at the 29-yard line. Rolling right, Love scans the field, scans again, and lofts a pass deep to Watson, toward the middle of the end zone. He’s late, and safety Tarvarius Moore is waiting.

The 2-minute drill ends with Watson searching for the football as it drops into Moore’s hands.

“A mortal sin,” Love says. “Late over the middle.”

Near his locker, the next question is predictable. Rodgers might be gone, but Love will remain in his shadow. Everything he does will be compared to a first-ballot Hall of Famer. The quarterback who succeeded a first-ballot Hall of Famer better than any other in NFL history.

Was the pick a byproduct of trying to be too much like Aaron Rodgers?

“You see a guy like that be able to do it,” Love says, “and it gives you confidence. Like, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ At the same time, everybody’s different.”

More: Packers President Mark Murphy: There will be some ups and downs with Jordan Love

Love’s challenge as he begins this next chapter in Packers history will be using what he’s learned from Rodgers while making the position his own. Rodgers famously diverted from Favre’s mold once he ascended to the starting job, on and off the field. He treated interceptions like the plague. He vetted his frustrations with the franchise without taking them out on his backup. He spoke to the media each week at his locker, refusing to separate himself from the team at the podium, as Favre did.

Already those differences are emerging with Love. He didn’t do interviews from the podium this offseason, but he wasn’t at his locker either, speaking at a nearby bin toward the middle of the room. A balance between two legends.

After minicamp, Love organized another trip out west. He texted teammates, arranging a session with his personal coach. “It’s a little easier, being the starter,” Love says, “to have guys come out.” Jones made another trip to Santa Ana. Watson and Doubs attended. Rookies Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks joined. Calhoun gathered feedback from the Packers, tuning his blueprint to routes in LaFleur’s playbook.

They ran through their 90-minute workout, throwing a hundred passes under the Southern California sun. Love barked orders from the epicenter. It was go time.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Packers' Jordan Love poised to emerge from Aaron Rodgers' shadow