His counting and advanced stats are almost all top-5 and he’s piloting an offence that is also in the top 5 by most metrics in large part because of his genius.
This isn’t a stacked offence outside of Lamar. In the pass game it’s built around an ageing Odell Beckham, an emerging but small Zay Flowers, a largely disappointing Rashod Bateman and now Isaiah Likely at tight end when the straw that stirred the drink Mark Andrews went down.
In the run game, it's basically Gus Edwards and Lamar at this point, with some Justice Hill sprinkled in for good measure.
Put simply this is the Lamar show, in every pass play and every run play. He’s one of those pezzonovante that Don Corleone so passionately hated, but so badly wanted Michael to become.
He pulls every string on every offensive snap.
He’s Senator Jackson. Governor Jackson.
He’s also Expensive Jackson.
After a protracted negotiation Lamar signed a deal worth $260m over 5 years with $135m guaranteed at signing. He will have made $80m in cash by the end of this season and his cap hits for this season and the next three seasons after that are $22,150,000, $32,400,00, $43,650,000, and $74,650,000 (before inevitable restructures).
I’m not saying it was a bad deal, not at all. Lamar was the best player on the best team and will almost definitely be the MVP if value is measured by performance on the field (which it is and should be). But what if we took contract into account, as well as on field production?
If you accept that the quarterback should always be the MVP because they necessarily impact the game on every offensive snap, and you are wiling to accept that off-field components like the contract should come into play, then why couldn’t Jordan Love be the MVP?
Let’s start with his contract. Love was drafted in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, much to primadonna and general dumb dumb dickhead Aaron Rodgers’ chagrin. That means he entered the 2023-24 season having barely played over his three years with the team, but with the Packers needing to decide pretty quickly whether to pick up his fifth-year option.
The Packers, however, pre-empted the option. They declined the option and signed him to a two-year extension worth a maximum of $22.5 million with $13.5 million guaranteed. The option was worth almost exactly that and it effectively meant that they spread the fifth-year option over two seasons and had incentives in the deal so Love could get the full value of his option if he played up to a certain level over the two years.
They tried, and succeeded, at avoiding the Giants/Daniel Jones situation of declining his option, having their guy play well, and be stuck handing a player with one year of production a fat extension. Love, willing to bet on himself, played ball.
The upshot of it is that Love played for just less than $4.5m against the cap in 2023/24.
Even with Lamar’s diminished cap hit of $22.5m this season, he was still 4.5x more expensive than Love against the cap.
To put it plainly, the Packers spent $63.58m in cash on the offence this season in total, about $17m less than what Lamar alone made in cash.
What makes this argument compelling, though, is how good Love has been particularly in the back half of the season in taking the youngest team since the 1982 Patriots to the playoffs, per Peter Schrager.
Love’s season-long counting stats are exceptional, throwing for over 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns. But in the back part of the year he’s been remarkable.
In his last 5 games he’s thrown ten touchdowns to only one pick, increased his completion percentage from 64% to 71% while also increasing his average length of completion from 7.2 to 7.7. He also bumped up his passer rating by 15 points over that same period while leading the Packers to three straight wins to close to season and make the playoffs.
The advanced numbers back it up too. Since week 11, Green Bay are third in EPA/play, first in dropback EPA and third dropback success rate, largely because their quarterback and star playcalling head coach are absolutely fucking dealing.
He leads the NFL in combined EPA and completion percentage over expectation while being seventh in air yards. He’s ripping throws down the field into tight spots and doing it efficiently, all while his oldest, most experienced and allegedly best receiver is Christian Watson, 24, who missed the final 5 games of the year.
He's made a collection of day 2 and 3 picks into one of the best offences in the league.
That's where the Brock Purdy comparison falls apart.
The 49ers are spending $106m in cash on offence and have assembled maybe the greatest collection of skill players in league history. Jordan Love's best receivers have been second round rookie Jayden Reed and fourth round second year player Romeo Doubs.
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