Early Jordan Love OTAs show ‘it’s still early days’ for Packers’ new QB1 – ESPN – Green Bay Packers Blog

GREEN BAY, Wis. — At some point, everyone around the Green Bay Packers stop saying “it’s still early” when it comes to questions about jordan love‘s progress as the new starting quarterback.

They haven’t gotten to that point yet, and they may not be close.

Certainly not after two offseason practices, the second of which was open to the media on Tuesday.

“I think it’s still early days right now,” Love said. “This is our first week of practice, starting to practice live against the defense. It’s not perfect now. We know it’s not going to be perfect.

“I think the meter for us is to continue to build, to make sure that we’re doing the right things, in the right place on the routes and the depth of the route, the timing, things like that, building that confidence to bring the meeting room to the field and make sure everything is checked from that aspect.

At the end of Tuesday’s OTA session, Love had completed just 3-of-12 passes during 11-on-11 periods. He finished 6-of-16 with three touchdowns, all of them coming in the final red zone period. He didn’t help the starting left side of the offensive line (david bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins) was absent, but Love had three passes deflected or knocked down, one dropped and one nearly intercepted by linebacker De’Vondre Campbell about the middle.

Perhaps his best throw was a 10-yard touchdown pass to christian watson on a post route against tight cornerback coverage Keisean Nixon. He followed that up with a 10-yard touchdown pass to romeo doubles on an overflow route and finished the drill with a 4-yard touchdown pass to samori toure on a stop route one step into the end zone.

That trio make up Love’s most experienced receivers, and all are entering their second NFL season.

To help speed up Love’s learning curve, Packers coach Matt LaFleur said they are practicing with fewer scripted plays and doing more “call it” periods.

“I think it’s kind of challenging, for young players to have unscripted periods, really in every phase,” LaFleur said.

And that’s not just for love. He’s surrounded by a receiving group that doesn’t include anyone with more than one season of experience and a tight ends group that includes a couple of rookies.

“We have to see what everyone else around him can do,” LaFleur said. “And we’ve got some young guys, so it’s going to be a work in progress, for sure, over the course of OTAs and training camp and, frankly, over the course of the season.”

Including Bakhtiari and Jenkins, five other players were absent from the voluntary session. Both starting cornerbacks, jaire alejandro and rasul douglasthey left along with starting outside linebacker preston smithmore backups Dallin Leavitt and jonathan garvin. Bakhtiari, Jenkins and Smith have been regulars on the offseason program. No reason was given for his absence on Tuesday.

A couple of former first-round picks, cornerback Eric Stokes and outside linebacker Rashan Gary, were among those being rehabbed to the side. Stokes revealed on Tuesday that he underwent surgery on his right foot to repair an injury to Lisfranc, in addition to having his right knee examined. Both injuries occurred last November in Detroit, the same game in which Gary tore his right ACL.