Former New York Jets general manager and current ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum surprised the NFL world by saying that he would be comfortable taking Jordan Love as the second best quarterback in the NFL to build around, right after Patrick Mahomes. And then, Yahoo Sports analyst Nate Tice went on Mina Kimes' podcast for a quarterback draft and took Love ahead of players like Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, and CJ Stroud.
I think this is close and don’t object to anyone taking Stroud, but this ratio….did people not watch Jordan Love last year? pic.twitter.com/TppMtc1jtt
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) May 31, 2024
This is wild considering how fast things changed, but there's a fair and real case to be made. Jordan Love is, right now, the most valuable player in the NFC.
The AFC is a different animal
Patrick Mahomes is in a tier of his own. But even if you try to expand the tier of elite and sub-elite quarterbacks, most of them are in the AFC right now. Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, CJ Stroud, Trevor Lawrence, Aaron Rodgers.
So it's fair to wonder if Tannenbaum and Tice like Jordan Love more than they maybe should at this point, while also agreeing that Love is at the top of the NFC hierarchy.
Contenders
Last year, Jordan Love was seventh in PFF grade among NFC quarterbacks. And that considers the entire season — he was obviously better than that over the second half of the year. Love was 24th in the entire NFL between weeks 1 and 8, but the best in the league from week 9 on. And that, combined to his age, timeline, and development trajectory, are the main points of this case.
Taking the full 2023 season, the NFC quarterbacks who played better or arguably better than Love are Dak Prescott, Matthew Stafford, Brock Purdy, Jalen Hurts, Kirk Cousins, and Jared Goff.
Most of them are older and you know the limits of their performance. Prescott played the best season of his career with Mike McCarthy calling his plays, and while he was at an elite level, it won't get much better than that. Stafford can also play at an absurd level at stretches, but his career has been full of ups and downs. Kirk Cousins is old now and coming back from an Achilles injury — plus, he's never been elite.
With Goff, Hurts, and Purdy, the conversation is around the ceiling and surroundings. How much is the quarterback able to elevate what's around him and how good is he in a vacuum?
For Goff, that's easier to answer because he has played in different and worse circ*mstances — and it went bad. That's why the Los Angeles Rams paid so much to swap him for Stafford, and they are certainly not sorry about that. Goff can be good with a solid offensive line, good weapons, and a great playcaller, but that's also the case with several NFL quarterbacks from a lower level.
Brock Purdy is a year younger than Love and had better stats, but we all know that he played in the best circ*mstances in football, with Kyle Shanahan calling the shots and with the Avengers alongside him. Even so, Purdy regressed in the playoffs, and the San Francisco 49ers reached the Super Bowl more in spite of him than because of him. Purdy is a competent quarterback and has value, but his ceiling is not that high and it's hard to imagine him in fact leading a team to a championship.
The best case to compete with Love for the top spot is Jalen Hurts, who had an elite season in 2022, taking the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl, and was drafted in the same class as Love, in 2020. Hurts adds a lot of value to his game with his athletic ability, but much of his game so far has been predicated on the quality of the Eagles' offensive line and weapons. And even so, he had a passer rating below 90 in three of his four NFL seasons — including two of these three as a full-time starter. The 2022 season might look like, at this point, as an outlier.
Why it’s been so impressive
You can fairly argue that the second half of last season was also an outlier for Jordan Love, but we can't know that for sure because he hasn't regressed after that.
The most impressive fact is what Love was able to do with such a young group of players. Every wide receiver and tight end on the roster last year, except for Josiah Deguara, was a first- or second-year player. There is not a single star there. And it's the youngest group since the 2017 Cleveland Browns.
The offensive line was undoubtedly good, but it was also full of young players, especially after David Bakhtiari went down.
It's easy to trust Jordan Love is real because he certainly made the most out of his situation, leading them to be the youngest offense to make the playoffs in the NFL in recent history. His value is already obvious.
The NFL is full of great, ascending quarterbacks. However, to be real, most of them are in the AFC. Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels are coming, but we can't judge them before watching them play. So far, Jordan Love is on his path to be the most valuable player in the conference, and it's just the beginning for Green Bay.
