The Sky Sports NFL team react to the performance of Jordan Love in Thursday's victory for the Packers over the Lions on Thanksgiving; Jeff Reinebold: "The future is really bright for this kid and if you're a Packers fan you've got to be ecstatic"
Friday 24 November 2023 11:01, UK
Jordan Love used the national stage to drop arguably his most accomplished NFL performance yet as he steered the Green Bay Packers to an impressive victory over the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Thursday.
The 2020 first-round pick, in his first season as starter following the departure of Aaron Rodgers, threw for three touchdowns to lift Green Bay back into the playoff hunt and slow the momentum of a second-seeded Lions team.
While teams around the league drift through periods of uncertainty at quarterback, it served as fresh reassurance that the Packers may have found their long-term answer after 30 years of Brett Favre and Rodgers.
"Imagine the pressure on him, you've had two Hall of Famers before you and you have to sit and wait your turn," said Sky Sports NFL's Jeff Reinebold. "Now he's played 11 games as starter and we see a performance like that today.
"The future is really bright for this kid and if you're a Packers fan you've got to be ecstatic."
Love set the tone for his night with a perfect spiral to Jayden Reed that required flawless accuracy to squeeze between two players and find his receiver for the opening touchdown of the game.
His confidence was later underlined by a dangerous cross-field throw that saw him slalom to the right of a busy pocket before lobbing up a completion to a leaping Malik Heath.
"Look at how he delivered those passes, when he took those chances he made it happen, it was complete," said Sky Sports NFL's Jason Bell.
"He is a player that understands his strengths, understands what he's seeing and believes in both of them. His mobility is under-utilised, the guy can do it all and it was all about maturing with this young team.
"The players like him, they truly enjoy him as their quarterback and leader, so when he goes out and performs like this and validates how they feel this is when you have something good cooking.
"It's all about how we get along, how we view each other, that's what makes a team, that's what builds championships."
When the Lions slipped up, Love was on hand to punish. Detroit had threatened a comeback with a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half after entering the break down 23-6, only for the Packers to force a turnover on downs and Love to take advantage with a beautifully-weighted touchdown strike to Christian Watson.
"What a great game he has had. A young quarterback who has had a lot of noise around him and he's really cleaned up his act in terms of the fundamentals," said Sky Sports NFL's Phoebe Schecter.
"We saw a couple of wary decisions but that's natural when you feel like you need to make something happen. It's benefiting them from a youth perspective, it's such a young team and they're going to grow together."
Packers head coach Matt LaFleur suggested it was "night and day" when comparing Love's performance on Thursday to that of his two-interception and five-sack display in the Week Four loss to the Lions.
"I have to go back and look at it, but certainly, it appears that way," LaFleur said post-game. "And it's given us a lot of confidence to be a little more aggressive with some of the calls. When you're trusting your offensive line. When you're trusting your quarterback to facilitate and get the ball where it needs to go and throw on rhythm, that allows you to do that.
"And we had a lot of, I would say deeper developing plays and hit a lot of intermediate throws for some chunk plays that ended up being big for us."
