Love’s haters need to chill

.By GERY WOELFEL

Jordan Love is going to be an outstanding quarterback.

Repeat, Jordan Love is going to be an outstanding quarterback.

Of course that isn’t a popular declaration these days. After all, Love, the Packers’ young quarterback, is going through some painful growing pains.

In his last two outings, Love has looked more like the next Frank Patrick than the next Aaron Rodgers. At least, that’s the case from a statistical standpoint.

In that two-game stretch, Love completed 39 of 66 passes, a pedestrian 59 percent. He threw one touchdown pass and five interceptions. The latter number is disturbing considering that the big knock on him coming out of Utah State was ball protection.

What Love’s critics have conveniently overlooked, though, is how Love performed in the first two games this season, when he performed at a high level. For those who have a short memory, Love threw three TD passes in Game 1, without an interception. In Game 2, he again threw three touchdown passes, without an interception.

Love has thrown eight touchdown passes this season and that’s the eighth-most in the league. That is also more than several other ballyhooed quarterbacks like Justin Herbert and Jalen Hurts and Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow and Dak Prescott and Trevor Lawrence and Lamar Jackson. That’s impressive.

But some members of Packer Nation are prematurely pressing the panic button on Love. They have moronically decided in their minds that Love isn’t the answer, that he won’t live up to the absurd expectations placed upon him, that he’ll never replicate the amazing feats of the Packers two previous quarterbacks: Rodgers and Brett Favre.

In all likelihood, Love won’t measure up to them. The bar Favre and Rodgers set is high, very high. Favre is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and it’s only a matter of time before Rodgers joins him.

But that doesn’t mean Love can’t establish himself an elite quarterback. In his brief tenure as the Packers’ starting quarterback, Love has exhibited many of the attributes required of a blue-chip quarterback. He’s intelligent, he’s remarkably poised, his pocket presence is exceptional, he’s got a strong arm, he’s got leadership skills and he’s athletic, which in today’s game is critical.

For the Love haters who unabashedly chastised his performance against the Las Vegas Raiders, they  might want to reassess their analysis.

In that game, Love was constantly besieged by pressure and seldom had a clean pocket as the offensive line, which labored so admirably through the first three games, had a game not to remember.

Love’s receivers didn’t do him any favors, either. By this veteran scribe’s observations, Packers receivers dropped four passes — Love would have been a very respectable 20 of 30 if they had caught them – and ran some shoddy routes..

And, don’t forget the Packers didn’t have the service of Aaron Jones, their venerable running back who is a dual threat.

Those aren’t excuses; those are facts. Any proven NFL quarterback would have probably struggled under all of those adverse circumstances – much less a 24-year-old one. Love is going to be just fine. You knew his first full-season as the leader of the Pack would be a roller-coaster experience, one filled with highs and lows.

And, unless the line gets its act together and the raw receiving corps grows up quickly, he’s going to have more games this seasons where his critics will have a field day.

But as Rodgers’ once famously uttered to an impatient Packers fan base, R-E-L-A-X. Better days, much better days, are ahead for Love and Company.

As Rodgers noted about his successor Tuesday, “He’s shown a lot of good things early in the season … Take some deep breaths. He’s going to be around for a while.’’

And he’s going to be very good.