ARLINGTON, Texas – Watching the Green Bay Packers eviscerate the Dallas Cowboys in a road playoff game Sunday, it was hard not to think back to the 1995 season and another young quarterback leading the Packers to a huge playoff win, at San Francisco.
Those who have been around long enough remember Brett Favre, who’d just won his first NFL MVP, wheeling and dealing in the Packers’ dominating divisional-round win over the 49ers that was a breakout victory for the ‘90s Packers. Favre was in total command that day, leading his team to a convincing win.
Jordan Love did pretty much the same thing in the Packers’ 48-32 beatdown of the Cowboys on Sunday.
The main difference, though not huge, is Favre was 26 years old, in his fourth season as a starting quarterback and fifth year in the NFL. Love, on the other hand, is year younger, in his first season as a starter and only fourth year in the league.
Love’s command and dart throwing on his way to a near-max 157.2 rating on the biggest stage he’s faced in his young career was like Favre against the 49ers, only more so. It’s now a guarantee Love and the Packers have the attention of the entire NFL.
“Man, Jordan Love, wow,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “That’s about all I can say is, wow.”
Yeah, wow. If the Packers rebuild was ahead of schedule just by recovering from a 2-5 start to qualify for the playoffs this season, it’s now way ahead of schedule. The Packers were 7-point underdogs coming into a game against a team that was unbeaten at home this season and as the No. 2-seeded team in the NFC thinking it had a great shot at getting to the Super Bowl. This game had the makings of a lesson in maturity and playoff football for LaFleur’s young team.
But Love and the Packers were undaunted. They set the tone by taking the opening kickoff and eating up half the first quarter on a 75-yard touchdown drive. They never let up on the gas, put up 415 yards in total offense and 41 points (the other 7 came via a Darnell Savage pick-6).
Love didn’t do this by himself, of course. Having a healthy Aaron Jones has made all the difference in the world in the past month, and the Packers’ young but deep receiving and tight end corps is proving impossible to cover in the season’s stretch run. This team’s weapons have quickly become scary.
But it starts with the trigger man, and Love was nearly flawless (16-for-21 passing, 272 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions). He delivered the ball in rhythm when he had time, and bought time and then delivered when he didn’t, sometimes while also standing in there and taking a hit.
His 20-yard touchdown pass to Dontayvion Wicks that put the Packers up 20-0 late in the second quarter was the play that jumped out most. The Cowboys brought the house, and with multiple rushers coming at him from the middle of the line, Love stepped back for an extra half-tick to get the ball out, and off his back foot threw a strike to Wicks against Stephon Gilmore’s single coverage on a post-pattern for the score.
“To me that was a big-time play,” LaFleur said. “It just shows the growth he’s had from his first start vs. KC (in 2021) to now, just so proud and happy for him. He’s a dude. He is a real dude.”
Said Love: “I’m just playing quarterback. There’s always going to be a rush there. Trying to buy as much time as possible to get a read off and to get the ball off. So I think that’s just playing quarterback, you have to stay in there and take some hits every now and then.”
Love isn’t winning this year’s MVP, like Favre did in the ’95 season. But it’s not a stretch to say he’s played like one over the past couple of months. In his past nine games, the Packers are 7-2, and Love has put up a 120.5 rating and thrown 21 touchdowns to one interception.
This is the kind of a stuff that gives a team huge confidence in itself and its leader.
“I know (Love) can win big games and take us the distance,” said Preston Smith, the Packers’ oldest player at 31. “He has just as much ability as any other Super Bowl-contending quarterback. Obviously, he showed that tonight, and he’ll continue to show that. I know he can be one of the best quarterbacks in this league for a long time.”
Now the Packers face an even tougher task, going to San Francisco to play probably the most-talented and complete team in the league. That’s the same, only in reverse, as in ’95 when, after upsetting the 49ers, the Packers went to Dallas to take on an ultra-talented Cowboys team that would go on to win its third Super Bowl in four years.
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Maybe Love will have a much rougher outing against a 49ers defense that finished third in the NFL in points allowed this season and is better than the Cowboys defense the Packers faced Sunday. Running the ball against San Francisco’s No. 3-ranked run defense will be far more challenging against Dallas’ 16th-ranked run defense, that’s for sure.
Favre’s breakthrough season ended that following week in ’95 and was the kind of failure young quarterbacks usually have to go through.
But with each passing week, Love looks better and more ready-made than the Packers had any right to hope for at the season’s start. The days of October, when they had trouble mustering a first down in the first halves of games, let alone scoring, seem like a couple of years ago.
And with this talented young Packers offense, who knows what next week might bring?
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Jordan Love’s dominant game conjures Brett Favre memories with Packers
