Jordan Love rebounds again: Observations from Packers’ preseason game against Patriots

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - AUGUST 19: Jordan Love #10 of the Green Bay Packers looks to throw a pass in the first quarter against the New England Patriots during a preseason game at Lambeau Field on August 19, 2023 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
By Matt Schneidman
Aug 20, 2023

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The football game itself came second Saturday night at Lambeau Field, where New England Patriots cornerback Isaiah Bolden was stretchered off after colliding head-on with teammate Calvin Munson early in the fourth quarter.

The Patriots announced Sunday morning that Bolden was released from Aurora Bay Medical Center in Green Bay and would travel with the team back to Foxboro, Mass.

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The preseason game between the Green Bay Packers and Patriots was suspended with 10:29 remaining in the fourth quarter and the Packers trailing, 21-17, with the ball on New England’s 18-yard line. As the teams return to football activities, here are the takeaways from the game we didn’t cover in Saturday night’s story on the reactions from players and coaches to Bolden’s injury and the game’s sudden stoppage.

Love’s night

Stop me if you’ve heard this before over the last three weeks: Jordan Love bounced back from early struggles with impressive work that makes you think he can be a guy for the Packers this season. He’s done it in practice multiple times and did it against the Cincinnati Bengals last Friday, when he missed tight end Luke Musgrave on what would’ve been two chunk plays before leading a touchdown drive, capped off by finding wide receiver Romeo Doubs on a crossing route with a nicely lofted ball for a 9-yard score.

Love’s theme of the summer rang true again Saturday night, when he rebounded from a center-quarterback exchange malfunction and two scoreless drives to lead a 93-yard touchdown drive on his third series and finish 5-of-8 for 84 yards and a touchdown.

Love put one on Doubs for a 42-yard gain down the right sideline, scrambled for 11 yards on first-and-10 before drawing a late-hit penalty for another 15 yards and fired a dart to slot receiver Jayden Reed for a 19-yard touchdown with cornerback Shaun Wade plastered to his back on the crossing route.

“I think I’ve been really impressed with how he’s handled himself,” head coach Matt LaFleur said of his starting quarterback. “It dates back to even last preseason. I know we didn’t always have the results and I sat up here and defended him pretty hard in terms of some of the play, but it’s about the process and it’s about all the little things that go into that position — the command that you have in the huddle, the total command of the offense, the operation. Obviously, execution’s a big part of that, as well. I think we’ve all seen the growth over these last few years. It’s been pretty cool to witness but you’ve got to have a short memory in this game because you’re only as good as your last game — we all know that — and there’s a lot of work and, quite frankly, it’s only the preseason.”

Love said he’s “definitely ready” for the regular-season opener against the Chicago Bears, but LaFleur said his gut feeling immediately after Saturday’s game was that Love would play at least sparingly in next Saturday’s preseason finale against the Seattle Seahawks in Green Bay.

Botched exchange

Speaking of that snap malfunction, it came on the first drive of the game with the Packers facing a third-and-5 from their own 41-yard line. Center Josh Myers snapped the ball to Love’s right side, but the quarterback wasn’t ready for it. The ball tumbled behind Love and Patriots edge rusher Josh Uche eventually recovered it at Green Bay’s 18-yard line. The Patriots scored a touchdown five plays later to take a 6-0 lead.

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Here’s what happened, according to LaFleur and Love.

“Basically, we were using a dummy cadence and one of their D-linemen flinched; he just didn’t go into the neutral zone,” LaFleur said. “When that happens, we teach the centers to snap the ball if they cross into the neutral zone. It didn’t appear that their D-lineman went into the neutral zone and Jordan wasn’t ready for the ball.”

“On that play, it’s what we call a double cadence and after the first cadence, it looked like the D-end on the right side might’ve jumped and that’s kind of what Josh saw and felt and that’s why he snapped it right there and my eyes weren’t ready, weren’t on the snap at that point and obviously went back behind me,” Love said. “Something we never want to happen and I just wasn’t able to get the ball back right there, but it was just kind of miscommunication, obviously thinking we got a free play of them jumping offsides. … I’m not sure if he was offsides. If he wasn’t — the ref said he wasn’t — so something we’d have to just go back and look. But obviously something we gotta clean up, something you never want to happen.”

Push for OLB No. 3

With Rashan Gary and Preston Smith cemented as the top two edge rushers, the third spot will go to either Kingsley Enagbare, Justin Hollins or Lukas Van Ness. Enagbare, the 2022 fifth-round pick out of South Carolina, made a convincing case for the job Saturday night. And if Gary isn’t full-go by Week 1 coming off his ACL tear — he hasn’t been cleared for 11-on-11 work yet — Enagbare could see more playing time than the No. 3 edge rusher typically would.

His first splash play of the night came when he strong-armed right tackle Sidy Sow all the way back to Mac Jones and sacked the Patriots quarterback for a 9-yard loss on third-and-9.

“Pretty much throughout the week, we knew (Sow) was a guy that we could go with a lot of power and he wasn’t long armed,” Enagbare said. “So just knowing I had pretty good lift, I could power him with long arms and probably make something shake, so that’s what I did tonight.”

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Early in the second quarter, Enagbare then got around left tackle Andrew Stueber with ease and strip-sacked Jones on first down from the Packers’ 27-yard line before recovering his own forced fumble on Green Bay’s 38-yard line.

“It was one of those where I knew I had a good rush and I saw him step up in the pocket and I thought he was about to throw it,” Enagbare said. “So I was like, ‘I’m going to go ahead and try to dive out there.’ That’s pretty much a drill we work on every day and I don’t know how I got the ball. I just happened to look over and seen there was like a little white light with the ball and I just jumped on top of it.”

“It’s not a shock that he went out and performed like that,” LaFleur said. “He’s had a heck of a week of practice. Saw it in the two practices versus them. He had multiple sacks — or perceived sacks, since we didn’t call many of them. But he went out there and he performed just like he had practiced. It’s funny because I ran into him right before kickoff and I was like, ‘Hey, you’re going to get yourself a couple sacks today,’ and he went out there and did it.”

Sixth-round surprise

Rookie defensive lineman Karl Brooks out of Bowling Green made a handful of noticeable plays Saturday night — a sack wiped out by a Shemar Jean-Charles illegal contact penalty, a pressure of quarterback Bailey Zappe to force an incompletion on third-and-10 and a tackle for 1-yard loss on running back Kevin Harris on first-and-10 from Green Bay’s 14-yard line after breezing by right guard James Ferentz on his left side.

Brooks, a sixth-round pick, and defensive lineman Colby Wooden, a rookie fourth-round pick, have done some nice things this camp as the Packers look to finally surround Kenny Clark with enough help on the interior defensive line.

Depth chart change?

With David Bakhtiari not suited up for Saturday night’s game, 2022 seventh-round pick Rasheed Walker got the start at left tackle instead of Yosh Nijman, the normal-blind side backup to Bakhtiari. It doesn’t seem like coaches are just experimenting, either.

“Rasheed had a really good week of practice and we wanted to see him,” LaFleur said. “We knew that — I had talked to coach Belichick throughout the course of the week — and had a pretty good indication they were going to play their ones and wanted to see how he’d respond in that situation.”

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True from 52

Rookie kicker Anders Carlson made all three of his tries against the Patriots, two PATs and a 52-yarder with ease. It was only three kicks, but it’s a step in the right direction for the sixth-round pick who has had a rocky camp and missed two PATs wide right against the Bengals last Friday. The Packers have made it clear Carlson has a long leash, and the cannon attached to his right hip will come in handy if he sorts out his accuracy.

Third running back battle

When we say third running back, we more likely mean first running back on the practice squad since the Packers could very well again only keep Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon on the initial 53-man roster. With Tyler Goodson and Lew Nichols III out for extended periods of time with shoulder injuries, that battle seems to have come down to Patrick Taylor and undrafted rookie Emanuel Wilson. Both have stated strong cases for being the two practice squad running backs (if the Packers only keep two).

Wilson cooled off after his six-carry, 111-yard, two-touchdown breakout last week, but he still ran for an efficient 63 yards on 15 carries (4.2 yards per carry) and caught two passes for 15 yards against the Patriots. Taylor had an impressive bounce outside for an 8-yard touchdown run Saturday night and probably surpasses Wilson in two areas vital to a third running back’s skill set — pass protection and special teams.

Wilson seems to be the better runner than Taylor, but Wilson wouldn’t be asked to run much in the regular season, if at all, if Jones and Dillon stay healthy.

“I thought Wilson ran really hard,” LaFleur said. “He ran with really good power, ran through some arm tackles, ran with low pad level. I thought he had an outstanding day. This is two games in a row. Excited for him. There’s a lot of things he needs to continue to improve upon and I think like most young backs, pass protection is one of those, as well as just getting in better football shape. He’s gotten a taste of what it’s like to be an every-down back, especially in this game, and there were moments where I could tell he was pretty gassed. So I think that’s one thing he can continue to improve upon, is just that conditioning.”

Leftovers

• How can the Packers keep undrafted rookie wide receiver Malik Heath off the initial 53? He’s impressed throughout camp and led the team with 75 yards on five catches Saturday. “I get open, for sure,” Heath said postgame. “They can’t cover me. … Draft picks, they have a lot of leeway. Me, I’m undrafted. … I’m going to keep fighting. My mama, she raised a fighter, so I’m going to keep fighting.”

• Rookie seventh-round cornerback Carrington Valentine, after starring in the first three weeks of camp, had a rough night. He committed two penalties — defensive holding on third-and-goal from the 3 in the first quarter to set up a Patriots touchdown and pass interference on third-and-7 in the third quarter — and was one of the culprits, along with safety Anthony Johnson Jr., on Kayson Boutte’s 42-yard touchdown catch on a slant at the end of the first half.

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• There is no media availability Monday before the last two public practices of training camp Tuesday and Wednesday, both of which start at noon CT instead of 10:30 a.m. Thursday’s practice will be closed to the public and there’s no media availability Friday before the preseason finale against the Seahawks on Saturday in Green Bay at noon.

(Photo of Jordan Love: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

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Matt Schneidman

Matt Schneidman is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Green Bay Packers. He is a proud alum of The Daily Orange student newspaper at Syracuse University. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattschneidman