Jordan Love's inability to throw the deep ball is a problem for Packers

You can't be a successful quarterback in today's NFL and not be able to throw the deep ball. That's just not how things are done anymore, and that's terrible news for the Green Bay Packers.

They shipped out future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers to officially start a new era under his successor, former first-round pick Jordan Love.

Love can't throw the deep ball — at all.

To be fair, it's not that he doesn't have the arm for it. Love has plenty of arm talent and athleticism.

He can chuck it like an NFL quarterback, but he has none of the accuracy you're looking for in a starter. In fact, he looks like a straight-up backup quarterback when he throws deep.

Either he puts too much on it or far too little. Watch enough of Love and you'll get this sense of impending doom every time he heaves it downfield. You never know where it's going to end up, and after six games, it's fair to say that Love may not know where the ball is going to land, either.

Far too often, it has landed in his opponent's hands. He's thrown seven interceptions this season compared to 10 touchdowns. Six of those interceptions have come during this current Green Bay three-game losing skid, and frankly, one more should have been added to that tally but Love was bailed out by the refs against the Denver Broncos.

Matt Schneidman of The Athletic cited ESPN Stats and Info in his game piece after the loss to the Denver Broncos, which stated that Love is only 6-of-27 with no touchdowns and three interceptions on throws that travel at least 20 yards in the air this season.

Schneidman then quoted Love, who said he still wanted to push the ball downfield.

“We obviously want to take as many shots downfield as we can,” Love said. “We want to force the envelope, and we’ve just got to put more pressure on the defense, and I think we’ve just got to look at what we’re doing and figure out what mistakes we’re making, what we’re doing good and go from there.”

The fact of the matter is that Love is putting absolutely no pressure on defenses with his terrible deep ball. That's a problem for Green Bay, but the even bigger problem for head coach Matt LaFleur, general manager Brian Gutekunst and this franchise that hitched its wagon to Love in the 2020 NFL Draft is that it seems unlikely Love will suddenly "figure out" how to do this in what is technically his fourth NFL season.