I graded all 103 dropbacks for Jordan Love and Caleb Williams from the Wild Card loss to the Bears. Here’s what I found.
All offseason I’ve seen plenty of debate amongst Bears and Packers fans about which QB played better in the Wild Card game. Bears fans lean heavily on Caleb’s fourth-quarter heroics and clutch plays down the stretch, while Packers fans point to an insane passer rating and 4 TDs to 0 INTs.
The wound was too fresh for many months, but I finally decided to take the masochistic deep dive into the All-22, try to be as objective as possible, and grade every play to decide which QB actually performed better on that forgettable eve.
I used a +3 to -3 scale, +3 being a truly unforgettable masterpiece of QB play and -3 being a play that should immediately trigger a concussion test for the QB.
There were 49 Love dropbacks and 54 Williams dropbacks. Here’s where they graded out:
My biggest takeaways:
Love was sublime in the first half, no surprise there. The offensive line was trash in the second half. The gulf between Caleb’s time to throw and Love’s time to throw was enormous.
Love stopped trying to take ANY risk in the second half. If he was under pressure and his first read had even decent coverage, he would be very, very safe with the ball. It was clear there was a heavy emphasis on not turning the ball over at any cost. Whether that mentality came from MLF or Love is unknowable.
Once the game got close, Love from the first half returned. He went back to threading the ball perfectly into decent coverage and moving the chains with ease. I found myself wondering why we wasted so many possessions just trying not to fail.
For Caleb, he wasn’t as bad in the first half as I remembered and wasn’t as good in the second half as I remembered. Both of his INTs weren’t that bad. The Packers blew up both plays, and both INTs were on fourth down where they weren’t all that negative (in fact, I have no idea what Valentine was thinking catching the first one at all).
He is an extremely puzzling player. When Ben Johnson schemes his first read wide open, he seems to throw the ball into the dirt or sail it five feet over his guy’s head way too often. To his credit, when his first read is covered, he is patient through his progressions and will calmly scan the field and usually find the most open receiver.
He had all day on so many occasions and made the Packers defense pay nearly every time. If he learns how to make routine plays routinely, he will be a problem.
This was basically a test run for a project I’m starting this season called Love vs. the League. Every week I’m going to grade every Jordan Love dropback along with every dropback from the opposing QB and see who actually played better. I’ll also be keeping a season-long Jordan Love Index as the grades accumulate.
For the full article and a much deeper dive into both QBs, you can go here:
https://www.packmentalitygb.com/love-vs-the-league-love-vs-williams/
I’m still dialing in the grading system before Week 1, so I’d genuinely love feedback on it. If you think I’m completely wrong about something, let me have it.