Green Bay looks like it has done it again at football’s most important position

The Green Bay Packers stole Brett Favre from the Atlanta Falcons in a 1992 offseason trade. He started for Green Bay for 16 years, won a Super Bowl and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005. He sat behind Favre for three seasons, then took over as the starter in 2008. Rodgers won a Super Bowl, was named All-Pro four times as a Packer and will be a Hall of Famer once he’s done dominating news cycles with the New York Jets.

Green Bay drafted Jordan Love in 2020. He sat behind Rodgers for three seasons. Now, with Rodgers in New York with the Jets, Love has taken over as the Packers’ starting quarterback.

The way things are trending, with the 25-year-old Love playing outstanding football as the Packers have won three straight and four of five to put themselves in the thick of the NFC playoff picture, it looks like Green Bay might have done it again.

NFL teams get quarterback wrong far more often than they get it right, and quarterback-desperate teams will go to great lengths in efforts to solidify the position. When a team loses or moves on from a franchise quarterback, it can often be a decade or more before they truly find another one.

The Packers, though, may well have gone three-for-three. They have had franchise-caliber quarterback play for 30 years, and if Love is what it looks like he might be, that run could extend to 40 years.

That simply doesn’t happen in the NFL.

With Rodgers, and now it appears with Love, Green Bay has done something that was once standard procedure but it now rarely done in the NFL. The Packers have used a first-round pick on a quarterback, then had that quarterback sit and learn behind an established (great) quarterback for several seasons before getting an opportunity.

The amount of money invested in these players, instant gratification demands from ownership and the fan base and the often short ropes coaches — and sometimes GMs — get to prove themselves work against that philosophy.

Giants head coach Brian Daboll has worked with quarterbacks of all types, from a first-round pick like Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills to an undrafted one like the Giants’ Tommy Devito.

I asked him the other day whether he was a proponent of the ‘sit and learn’ philosophy for a quarterback.

“It’s been a good philosophy for them. So, I think every team is different. Every situation is different. They’ve had three, really, quarterbacks since ‘92, or was it ’91 that they traded Favre, Atlanta? ’92 or ’91, what year was it? Somewhere, ’92 or ’91,” Daboll said. “So, yeah, Coach Holmgren [former Packers head coach Mike Holmgren] with Favre and then Aaron was there, and he did an unbelievable job. Two of the best to ever do it.

“I’d say Jordan is just — he’s a heck of a player. That’s why he was selected high. You can tell he’s learned a lot from the coaching staff. I think, again, Coach [Matt] LeFleur runs a good system, puts him in good spots, but you can see he’s learned a lot from the people that have been in front of him, and now he’s letting his talent shine.”

Love has had passer ratings of 108.5 or higher in four of the past five weeks, not coincidentally the games the Packers have won.

“I just think he’s a heck of a player. Again, young, was able to kind of see how one of the greats have done it,” Daboll said. “He’s just got really good feet, he’s got good vision, he can make loose plays. He can run if he needs to, he can throw the ball vertical, he’s looking to take a bunch of shots. You can see he’s in full control of the system with the different signals and the checks that he makes. And then the guys around him are good players.”