> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.packmentalitygb.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Love vs. the League: Who Actually Played Better, Jordan Love or Carson Wentz? - URL: https://www.packmentalitygb.com/love-vs-the-league-who-actually-played-better-jordan-love-or-carson-wentz/ - Published: 2026-09-20T14:30:19.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-20T14:30:19.000Z - Author: Pack Mentality - Tags: Love vs the League ### **Love vs. The League, Week One Edition** Sorry this article took so long. I had an exceptionally busy week, and this game was about as painful and easy to put off rewatching as any Week 1 Packers game in recent memory. Next week, the goal is to get this article out quite a bit sooner. Let me tell you, going through the All-22 after eight months of anticipation for Week 1 was pretty challenging. The glaring offensive line issues we all worried about made all of our biggest fears about the OL show up in 4K, and they were so much worse than even the most negative Packers fan could have imagined. Since I’m sure many of you haven’t read my Love vs. The League preview article going over the Wild Card loss to the Bears, here’s a quick breakdown. I go over every relevant Jordan Love dropback, as well as every dropback from his counterpart, and try my very best to watch each play several times and grade just how well I think the QB executed based on the conditions he was given. I take into account coverage, time to throw, processing of the open receivers, and whether I felt they could have done more or less. I grade each play from +3 to -3 and go from there. Without further ado, on to the results: ### **Jordan Love** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/66/fd/66fda761-a755-4ba2-a860-979614227e8d/content/images/2026/09/J-Love-cinematic.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/66/fd/66fda761-a755-4ba2-a860-979614227e8d/content/images/2026/09/ChatGPT-Image-Sep-20--2026--05_43_08-AM.png) Jordan Love finished the week 21 of 42 for 387 yards with 2 TDs, 1 INT and 1 fumble lost. His passer rating was only 88.1\. Not impressive. Outside of passing yards, this was not a very statistically impressive performance for Love. I don't think any of us needed to watch the All-22 to realize many of the shortcomings of his stat line were courtesy of the football terrorists we currently employ to protect him. One thing worth noting is that I stopped grading once we firmly hit garbage time. I had no interest in breaking down how Love dissected soft coverage when the game was already out of hand, and I didn't want irrelevant snaps skewing my results. Overall, Love's game looked pretty good. He was under constant duress all afternoon and was almost never afforded the luxury of going through his progression. At best, it seemed like he could look at two receivers, provided they were relatively close to each other on the field. He still managed to do a lot with a little and was very careful not to force anything or put us behind the sticks. In the first half, Love came out of the gate a little tight, as can be expected from your first snaps of Week 1\. His very first pass earned him a negative grade, and he didn't get his first completion until his fourth pass attempt. That being said, his second completion of the season was the 81-yard TD to Watson, so they didn't keep him down for long. From an offensive line perspective, this whole game felt like I was watching the second half of the Wild Card collapse against the Bears. The discrepancy between what Jordan Love was dealing with and what Carson Wentz was dealing with from a pressure perspective was honestly laughable. It felt like they were playing different sports. I found myself trying to picture prime Rodgers in Love's shoes with this kind of pressure, and I honestly don't think he could have done much better. There was really just very little to be done with that little protection. One thing that really stands out to me about Love is how composed he is. He was in bad situations that were out of his control all day long. He got bruised, battered and roughed up all afternoon, but he never seemed to lose his calm demeanor. He didn't chew anyone out, he didn't seem to complain, he just went to work and consistently found ways to execute when there was nothing there. It was far from a perfect game for him, but I think many QBs would have let this game snowball on them and thrown a tantrum out there. Love certainly has faults, but he is nearly unflappable. I do think no one on the coaching staff realized the extent of the offensive line's ineptitude in this game, and I expect the game plan to be significantly better at working around it next week vs. the Jets. In big situations, the Packers called play-action passes that took valuable time away from Love that he simply didn't have, and those got blown up time after time. They also called several pass plays down the stretch that consisted only of long-developing routes with no checkdown options. I think much of that will be cleaned up sooner rather than later, and we'll see more quick hitters and rollouts to the right, which were very effective. Overall, I came out of this game feeling like Love was very low on my list of concerns in a very concerning game. ### **Carson Wentz** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/66/fd/66fda761-a755-4ba2-a860-979614227e8d/content/images/2026/09/image.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/66/fd/66fda761-a755-4ba2-a860-979614227e8d/content/images/2026/09/0e4f1a02-a280-4146-a3c7-c607f4796d0c.png) Let's start from the top. I decided not to grade Kyler Murray's snaps because he barely had any, and quite frankly, it would have graded out so poorly that it would have skewed my database too much. He was bad bad in the few dropbacks he tallied. So that leads me to Wentz. I still can't fully believe that the Packers lost to Carson Wentz in 2026, but honestly, he played a pretty solid game overall. He started off playing very conservatively and overall risk-averse, but he settled in quite a bit down the stretch. When I watched the broadcast, I thought our defense played quite well this game. I'm not sure I had the same impression on rewatch. They weren't bad, but if you put a high-end QB in Purple and Gold, this game might have gotten ugly. There were numerous plays where Wentz had a guy who was NFL open and didn't pull the trigger despite staring right at him. This made our pressure look better than it was and our CB play look better than it was. I will say that in the second half, Wentz was trusting his arm more and pulling the trigger more often. The TD pass in the first half to Justin Jefferson was an absolute dime, so you're probably wondering why it "only" got a +2\. The throw was absolutely a +3 in a vacuum, but +3s on my scale are so electric and rare that they simply can't come on a free play. Furthermore, I am very skeptical that he takes that shot at this stage in the game into decent coverage if it wasn't a free play, given all the situations he had passed on prior to this. That being said, this was still tied for the highest-graded throw of the game for either QB, and I honestly didn't know Wentz still had this kind of ball in him. It was very impressive. Wentz had all day in the pocket this game. Many of the pressures the Packers defense generated came at the tail end of Wentz having the luxury of looking at every one of his pass catchers. The Packers allowed him to be comfortable, and much of the duress he felt in the pocket was self-inflicted. Wentz played well this game, and he played fantastic for a backup QB. He came in with limited preparation, rarely shot himself in the foot and executed when he needed to. As the game went on, you could feel him getting more comfortable and playing better and better. Overall, I was quite impressed with his performance under the circumstances. ### **So Who Actually Played Better?** Both QB's had nice games. They both dealt with their suboptimal situations pretty well, but overall I thought Love did more with less. If you reversed the QB's, I don't think this game would have been particularly close. I really, really hope that some combination of the OL playing better, the Packers not facing a Flores defense blitzing 80% (!!) of the time, and adjustments to skew the play selection toward quicker routes will lead to much more favorable circumstances for Love as the season progresses. If he can play at this level all season and our offensive line can manage to get to normally bad instead of historically bad, I have faith this season can turn around pretty quickly for the Packers. **Winner: Jordan Love** **Season Record: 1-0** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/66/fd/66fda761-a755-4ba2-a860-979614227e8d/content/images/2026/09/ChatGPT-Image-Sep-20--2026--05_40_44-AM.png)