Post-bye Packers predictions: Jordan Love's immediate future, rookie surges, and draft order
What to look for as the Packers begin the final four weeks of the 2022 regular season.
Good morning!
With the Green Bay Packers coming out of their bye week, we thought it prudent to discuss the team's outlook over the season's final four games and make some predictions. Today's edition of The Leap does just that with questions about the near future under center, which rookies have the highest potential to surge down the stretch, and where the Packers will fall in the draft order.
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Do the Packers start Jordan Love over Aaron Rodgers between now and the end of the season and, if so, what week does the change occur?
Jason B. Hirschhorn: Between Aaron Rodgers' comments about being "open" to sitting if/when the Packers reach mathematical elimination from the playoffs and general manager Brian Gutekunst's stated belief that quarterbacks need "to play a bunch of games before they know how to win," it seems fairly likely that third-year signal-caller Jordan Love will start at some point before the end of the season. Accordingly, this question really boils down to when one expects Green Bay to officially miss the playoffs.
The Packers will play at least one more game still technically alive for a wild-card berth. According to FiveThirtyEight, a loss to the Los Angeles Rams would knock their playoff probability to less than 0.1% but wouldn't completely remove them from consideration. A few mathematical-elimination scenarios exist for Green Bay in Week 15, but those require other games to fall in a very specific way. Accordingly, the team has a realistic shot to enter Week 16's tilt with the Miami Dolphins with the postseason still hypothetically on the line.
With that in mind, I think Love starts the final two games of the Packers' season. Both of those games take place at Lambeau Field and will provide Gutekunst and Co. a chance to see the 2020 first-round pick play against two quality opponents, the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions. While not the ideal sample size given Green Bay must soon determine whether to exercise Love's fifth-year option, that approach would still give the young quarterback back-to-back starts for the first time in his career.
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Peter Bukowski: I think Jason is right. But that would make for a boring newsletter so let’s, for sake of argument, make a different case: zero games.
If the Packers keep winning, Love won’t play because Green Bay will be in the playoff race down to Week 18. In fact, it’s possible that Lions game will be a “win and in” scenario for the Packers. Aaron Rodgers is starting that game if he’s healthy and who knows? Would Green Bay really be scared of going to Minnesota for a 2-7 matchup only a few weeks after they beat the Vikings in this scenario?
Just about every advanced metric agrees the Vikings are nowhere near a 10-3 team, much less a 10-2 team, and measures like DVOA already have the Packers above Minny in their total DVOA rankings.
And you know what? That’s fine. Green Bay claims to already know what it has in Love. Brian Gutekunst says the only way for him to get better at this point is to play, but they’ve made their decision on his fifth-year option, so for evaluation purposes, there’s no need for them to see Love (or so they say). We want to see him because we want to know if the Packers are right, is he a starting quarterback in the NFL?
We’d like to see it, but Gutey and Co. have seen enough.
Other than Christian Watson, which rookie has the best chance to shine over the final four games?
JBH: Kingsley Enagbare. The fifth-round pass rusher has already shown signs of growth since filling in for the injured Rashan Gary, registering 11 total pressures over four starts, according to Pro Football Focus. That surge in pass-rushing productivity has put him in some special company among the rookies.
With four more starts awaiting Enagbare, he has the chance to convert more of those pressures into sacks and solidify himself as an integral piece of the Packers' pass rush in 2023.
That would represent a remarkable development for a late-round rookie in any context, but Enagbare's development looks critically important for Green Bay given their circumstances. The timing of Gary's ACL tear could mean he begins next season on the physically unable to perform list, knocking him out for the first four games. Meanwhile, Preston Smith's future remains uncertain given the team's salary-cap restraints.
A big final month from Enagbare wouldn't fix those problems, but it would lessen the blow.
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PB: Let’s not forget the standout of training camp in Watson’s absence was also the same receiver who had some stand-up-in-your-seat moments to start the season. Romeo Doubs looked like he had the chance to become a legitimately dynamic receiver in the NFL, single-handedly carrying the passing offense in a win over the Patriots and making big plays in a slew of other games.
Doubs’ absence allowed Watson to break out, but Doubs’ return serves as the ideal complement to Watson who can win all over the field but thrives at beating teams over the top. If teams have to shade coverage toward Watson or play more two-high coverages, then a technician like Doubs can get open underneath and make plays after the catch.
Plus, with safeties concerned about Watson, the Packers can run some of their pet concepts like Dagger and Yankee where Watson is running safety-influencing deep routes to free Doubs up to create shot plays.
(Yankee)
Do the Packers finish the season with a top-10 pick?
JBH: At present, I think the Packers fall just outside that range come season's end. The emergence of Watson has improved the offense that regularly looks disjointed to a fringe top-10 unit by DVOA. That progress negates some (though not all) of the damage done by Joe Barry's underperforming defense. Between those trends and the caliber of the remaining opponents -- in order, the Rams, Dolphins, Vikings, and Lions -- Green Bay has a good shot to finish with two more wins.
A 7-10 team could still finish with a top-10 pick, but that doesn't seem quite as likely this season. Either by overall record, head-to-head record, or both, the Packers would almost certainly finish behind six teams in the draft order in this scenario. That would leave closer races between six teams that currently have similar records and no head-to-head tiebreaker. At present, Green Bay has easily the highest strength of schedule (.567), making a top-10 pick harder to achieve.
With that in mind, the Packers seem in decent position to land a pick in the early teens. That area of the draft worked out well the last time they selected there, taking Gary with the No. 12 overall pick in 2019.
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PB: To Jason’s point, there are currently a whopping seven teams sitting at 5-8 right now. The 5-8 Las Vegas Raiders currently hold the 8th pick, while the 5-8 Packers get the 14th pick. Even if the Packers stay in the mushy middle, that’s where everyone is in the NFL this year and their strength of schedule will keep them toward the bottom of the crew.
In order to get a top-10 pick, the Packers would likely have to lose out or maybe scratch out just one more win. Depending on your view, the odds of that may have increased with the Lions beating the Vikings Sunday because it opens up the chance for the Week 18 game against Detroit to have real meaning for both teams, and the loss for Minnesota means they do not have to legitimately worry about falling to the four spot in the NFC where they’d get a rematch with the Cowboys or Eagles, each of whom beat the piss out of the Vikings earlier this season (technical term).
Seven or eight wins aren’t going to get a top-10 pick, but in a draft with a bevy of top-level quarterbacks, expect quality position players pushed down the board, much like they were in 2020 when Lawrence, Lance, and Fields pushed down future All-Pros like Rashawn Slater and Micah Parsons.