Look for Jordan Love to target the middle of the field more than Aaron Rodgers did in his latter years quarterbacking the Green Bay Packers.
While the narrative surrounding Aaron Rodgers not throwing to the middle of the field is a little more complicated than merely that, look for his Green Bay Packers successor Jordan Love to make it a vibrant part of his game in his first season as the starter.
With Rodgers having been traded over to the New York Jets already this offseason, it will be up to Love to see if the Packers’ offense will sink or swim with him at the helm of it. The good news for Packers fans is Love seems to be doing exactly what is necessary to get the most out of Matt LaFleur’s scheme, which is to throw strikes to the middle of the field to open up the play-action.
Given that LaFleur stems from the Shanahan coaching tree, you are going to want a quarterback who is okay with leaning heavily on the run, is comfortable going up under center and will throw dimes to a well-defined spot in the middle of the field. This is exactly what Matt Schaub did in his prime, Matt Ryan did during his MVP season and what has made Jimmy Garoppolo so successful.
It will be entirely on Love to play on-script with timing and rhythm, but this all seems promising.
Jordan Love may be more okay throwing to middle of field than Aaron Rodgers
What you have to remember about Rodgers is that he loves not throwing picks more than anything else. In the latter part of his Packers run, he may have found more success throwing outside the numbers or to targets running outbreaking routes. You also have to remember that he never really had a great ground game to lean on at any point under Mike McCarthy. With LaFleur it was so different.
Since Rodgers is a little more of an ad-lib specialist, it may not have been a more by-the-book operation of any Mike Shanahan disciple, whether that be his son Kyle, LaFleur, Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel or whomever. As for Love, he is not going to be given the benefit of the doubt in his potentially two-year run as the starter before a decision is made on him. He has to play on-script.
Again, this is all contingent on Love being able to make throws in a rhythm-based, run-heavy offense. The more reps he gets in this system, the more comfortable he will be running it. However, if he cannot figure it out by midway through this upcoming season, that is not going to bode well for his long-term viability in Green Bay. He will have been in this offense for four years.
Overall, Love’s ability to run the play that is called will inevitably define his tenure in Green Bay.