SÃO PAULO — The Green Bay Packers’ season hung in the balance and their first game wasn’t even over.
Quarterback Jordan Love was writhing in pain on the field, flinging his right leg in the air. His left one had just gotten stuck under Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter and bent awkwardly on the game’s third-to-last play while edge rusher Josh Sweat hit him from up high. Love was gearing up to throw a Hail Mary, but the opportunity wasn’t there, and he took the hits as he managed to fling the ball to running back Josh Jacobs behind him.
Green Bay’s $220 million man, tied for the highest-paid player in NFL history and the franchise’s new face, was helped off the field by team physician Patrick McKenzie and trainer Nate Weir. On the game’s final two plays with Love on the sideline, backup quarterback Malik Willis threw out of bounds and was sacked. The Eagles won, 34-29, starting 1-0 while the Packers started 0-1. But one win or one loss seemed insignificant compared to the health of a player Green Bay’s Super Bowl hopes — playoff hopes, even — heavily rely on.
Love also appeared to need help leaving the field after the final whistle. Jacobs and Weir flanked him. After the game, Love was seen exiting the locker room under his own power without too noticeable of a limp. If anything, he was slightly favoring his right side, which would make sense given what happened on the play. He wore a white sweatshirt with the hood over his head and was not made available to reporters, as he normally is after every game when healthy. Head coach Matt LaFleur was asked two consecutive questions about Love, one regarding what he knew about Love’s injury and one about what happened to Love. He responded, “I don’t know” to both.
“I mean, obviously, you don’t wanna see any of your teammates get hurt, but obviously you don’t wanna see the leader of your team get hurt,” Jacobs said. “So we don’t know the severity of his injury, but hopefully he’s OK.”
There might be Packers fans and even some inside the organization falling asleep Friday night and into Saturday morning praying that Love will be fine. They should, because it’s no exaggeration to say the Packers’ season hinges on his health. That’s stating the obvious. If he’s out for the season or even an extended stretch, what began as a season filled with promise for the Packers would take a major blow. When clicking, and he wasn’t entirely on his game Friday night, Love can be one of the league’s best quarterbacks. He showed as much in the second half of last season, when from Week 11 through the wild-card round he threw 21 touchdowns and only one interception while leading the Packers to a surprise Divisional Round appearance. The drop-off to his backup, Willis, as is the case with plenty of other teams in the league, appears significant.
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Sure, Love only played half a season worthy of his $55 million per year payday, but that’s the cost of doing business in the NFL when a quarterback of his caliber is entering a contract year. It would be difficult to repeat his production from late last season in his second year as the starter, a thought I posed to cornerback Keisean Nixon a couple weeks ago while reporting a story on Love’s journey to becoming the franchise quarterback.
“Is it?” Nixon asked, implying that Love was primed to pick up where he left off. Those inside Lambeau Field seemingly believed he could.
Against the Eagles, Love threw an interception when he tried fitting a pass down the middle into too tight of a crevice to tight end Luke Musgrave. Safety Reed Blankenship picked him off and the Eagles scored a touchdown four plays later to take a 31-26 lead late in the third quarter. Love also short-armed a throw over the middle to wide receiver Jayden Reed that probably would’ve gone for an explosive gain, and he threw slightly behind wideout Romeo Doubs on what would’ve been another nice gain over the middle. He slipped on the field in Brazil — he was far from the only one — and should’ve thrown a pick-six when he checked the ball down to Jacobs, but linebacker Nakobe Dean somehow dropped the ball after jumping the pass.
Love had his fair share of plays we expected from him too, namely the 70-yard touchdown pass on which he swiftly stepped up in the pocket and threw on the run to a wide-open Reed, who did the rest while breaking a tackle. But there wasn’t much, if anything, that dropped jaws like Love’s play late in his first season starting. Even if Love wasn’t the player Friday night that we saw the majority of the second half of last season, there’s no reason to believe before his injury that he couldn’t be that guy with more game time this year. He still could be, depending on the official results of his injury, but we simply don’t know what those results hold yet. There will be some tense hours and perhaps even days before either a collective sigh of relief from the Packers and their fans or a pit forming in their stomach.
“That’s the franchise right there,” defensive tackle Kenny Clark said of Love. “Hopefully he can be back next week and he can be all right.”
The Packers have about 10 hours on the flight back to Green Bay to ponder everything that went wrong in their season-opening loss — struggling to get Jacobs going early, the litany of costly penalties, Brayden Narveson’s missed 43-yard field goal, a bevy of missed tackles — but only one thing truly matters exiting Friday night’s game. If Love is fine — and by fine, I mean not out for an extended period — then all is well. If the news is what some are dreading, then buckle up for a long, miserable winter in the Frozen Tundra.
“Whatever it is, we’re gonna back him 100 percent,” wide receiver Christian Watson said. “We know what kind of guy he is, how he approaches everything. Whatever it is, I know he’s gonna get through it. We’re gonna get through it. Let God take care of the rest. I’m not sure right now.”
Matt Schneidman wrote: