Jordan Love Just Played the Best Playoff Game We've Seen

Jordan Love has become one of the NFL's best QBs, and just had perhaps the best playoff performance ever. Did you notice?

The Packers have found their guy yet again.

Nobody has ever been happy to see Jordan Love. When the Packers selected him in the first round (and traded up to do it) in 2020, nobody was happy, because they had a QB who was about to have the best season the NFL had seen in ages. People at the time called it a fireable offence for the Packers' GM to make the trade.

Would it have helped the Packers' playoff hopes in 2020 or 2021 to draft a player in this first round who saw the field at any point in those two playoff runs, perhaps another weapon? Sure it would have, but this was a franchise that was very much tired of being at the mercy of Aaron Rodgers. The fanbase, who was very much not tired of being at the mercy of Aaron Rodgers, wanted to win a Super Bowl right then. Totally understandable, but in hindsight, would you have rathered the Packers wait until 2021, where your team could've traded up to select Mac Jones? How about 2022, where you guys could've traded up to draft Kenny Pickett?

That's what I thought.

Nevertheless, after all the calls for GM firing and all the persistent threats of retirement from Aaron, the Packers finally called the bluff, shipping Aaron off to New York. Yet again, this made nobody happy, but with Aaron coming off the worst season of his career, it had to be done right then or it would've never been done. In hindsight, this trade is aging like wine for the Packers, and we haven't even seen all the draft picks turn into players yet.

This left the team with a QB room of Jordan Love, and rookie Sean Clifford. Needless to say, when you traded away Aaron Rodgers in order to end up with this result, it was less than inspiring for the Packer fans. It got even worse in the first ten weeks of the season, where Jordan posted a 0.061 EPA/Play (14th), which is okay, until you see that it was on a -3.5 CPOE (33rd).

33rd is worse than Tyson Bagent. It's worse than Desmond Ridder. It's worse than Mac Jones. It's worse than Josh Dobbs. It's worse than Bryce Young. Think of any awful QB you want, Jordan Love was less accurate than all of them except two in the first ten weeks of 2023. Those two being Zach Wilson, -3.9 CPOE, and Matthew Stafford, -5.9 CPOE.

There's a spectrum in the NFL between a QB helping an offence and a QB's offence helping him. Jordan ranking 33rd in accuracy, but 14th in the results-based EPA/Play stat, means he was getting carried big-time by his supporting cast. Considering the Packers were just 3-6 in this period, including losses that aged like milk (by the standards of a playoff team) against Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Denver, and possessed a negative EPA/Play offence (meaning their average play made them less likely to score, which is obviously the opposite of what you want), they were not carrying him very well, but this all changes in week 11, where Jordan puts up 0.24 EPA/Play on a positive CPOE in a must-win game against the Chargers.

This continues in week 12, where Jordan goes into Detroit as a nine point underdog and walks out a convincing winner after tearing the Lion defence to ribbons. It continues in week 13, as he does basically the same thing against a Kansas City defence that is no joke. We've just seen in the wild card round what that defence can do if you're not ready, but Jordan was ready.

The great play continues for the rest of the season from here, as the man who'd ranked 33rd in accuracy for the first half of the year completes fewer passes than expected just once for the whole remainder of the season as the Packers storm back and take over the NFC's final playoff spot, almost entirely because of Jordan Love.

Over the final eight games of the season, Jordan Love generated 0.266 EPA/Play (2nd) on a 6.2 CPOE (2nd) as the Packers suddenly had the NFL's second best offence. No longer was Jordan being carried. He's now carrying the Packers. Jordan went from being worse than Tyson Bagent and Desmond Ridder to being better than Dak Prescott, better than Lamar Jackson, better than Josh Allen. Only Brock Purdy was more accurate. Only Brock Purdy got better results. Only Brock Purdy was better than Jordan Love. Conveniently, it was also the Niners that prevented the Packers from having the league's best offence over this span.

Jordan didn't do this against weak opposition either. Green Bay's final eight games include wins against Detroit and Kansas City, both of whom have just won playoff games. It also includes a loss against Tampa Bay where Baker Mayfield had to play possibly the best game of his career to get the win. There are also sneakily real opponents on this resume, like second half Chicago, and the Chargers before they lost Justin Herbert.

This Green Bay schedule looked easier than it was, and many used this as an excuse to denounce the Packers as frauds. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that the Packers were occupying a playoff spot that shouldn't even exist (of course, the relatively new seven seeds) I'd be a rich guy, but now that you know how much their stats were dragged down by an admittedly quite bad first half of the season, would you have been so convinced?

According to my Expected Wins model, the Packers finished as the NFC's fifth best team, behind only SF, Dallas, Detroit, and New Orleans. That's fourth best among playoff teams, ahead of Tampa Bay, ahead of Philadelphia, and ahead of Los Angeles. If I weight the model more heavily towards the end of the season (which you can argue I should to assess playoff chances), Green Bay all of a sudden becomes better than Detroit, better than New Orleans, and nip and tuck with Dallas. The only team in the NFL (including Baltimore) that's convincingly better than Green Bay is the San Francisco 49ers, and that ought to tell you something right there.

Despite all of this info, the Packers came into Dallas for wild card weekend as seven point underdogs. I honestly think it should've been even money, because as I just described, I think GB is just as good as Dallas, maybe a bit better, but even money wouldn't have come close to predicting what came next.

I define an easy score as a drive that ends in a touchdown and sees one third down or less. The Dallas defence is very good. You need only watch their week 13 game against Philadelphia, or their week 17 game against Detroit to see what they can do against even very good offences that aren't ready. They don't give up many easy scores.

The Packers' first possession is an easy score. Their second is a punt. Their third is back to the easy scoring. The fourth is a bit more difficult, but not difficult enough to prevent a touchdown. Their fifth doesn't see a single third down at all. Nor does their sixth. Their seventh drive does see two third downs en route to scoring a touchdown, perhaps evidence that they're slowing, but by now it's too late. The Packers have a 48-16 lead, and Jordan doesn't touch the ball again.

EPA/Play is (roughly) a measure of how many points you add to your team's score every time you touch the ball, above the expected level that any normal player would be able to do. By definition, an average EPA/Play is about zero. Your team scores exactly as many points as they're expected to (approximately 20). A good game sees a player add 0.22 EPA/Play to his team's score. About a fifth of a point per touch. Multiply this by 30 touches and a QB has generated about six points more for his team than would be expected. Most of the time 0.22 EPA/Play is good enough to win a game.

What we're talking about here is in another stratosphere. Jordan Love was not good in this game. We have to go to all-time great. 99.7% of all games every QB has ever played generate less than 0.66 EPA/Play for their team. This means that if you generate higher than 0.66 (two thirds of a point) per touch, it's an all-time great game. For example, everybody remembers how well Patrick Mahomes played in last year's Super Bowl. He did not reach this benchmark.

Keeping in mind that 0.66 EPA/Play is all time great, you now understand why I say that this Jordan Love game is in the conversation for the greatest playoff game played by any QB ever when I tell you that he generated 1.13 EPA/Play this game.

That's right. Jordan Love took the all-time great mark, and nearly doubled it.

Over a point added per touch is so far above what is normally achievable that it becomes difficult to conceptualize, especially when 20 percent of a point per touch is enough to win most of the time. The only way to truly make it clear is to say it's impossible to lose when your QB plays this well. Saying anything is impossible, especially in the modern NFL, is the quickest way to make yourself sound like an idiot, but in this I feel confident.

The Washington Commanders were the NFL's worst defence in 2023. Nobody generated one point per touch against them. Nobody came close. This was done against the NFL's fourth best defence. In a playoff game.

Regardless of what happens next week in San Francisco, this deserves to be celebrated. I worry that because the opponent was the Cowboys, this legendary performance by Jordan (in his first career playoff game, might I add) is in danger of being overshadowed by all of the "LOL Dallas" memes out there, and all others with similar messages. I implore you. Do not allow yourself to be one of those people that gets so caught up laughing at Dallas that you don't appreciate Jordan Love. It may just break your heart.

To reinforce this point, I'm going to treat this performance as it deserves to be treated, as a candidate for the best playoff performance of all time. Let's have a real GOAT debate:

I don't have that many criteria for great games. Only two. The first is that the game cannot have been even remotely competitive. After all, if there's somebody that can compete with you even on your best day, you're not that great are you? The second is that the game must break the one point per touch barrier, because if it doesn't, it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Jordan's game on the pure strength of statistical superiority. No matter how important the situation, you'd never talk about a 20 foot putt as if it's as great as a 100 foot one would you?

I combed through NFL history looking for any playoff games (other than Jordan's) that can match both of these criteria. Take a guess as to how many I found.

The answer is one. Peyton Manning against the Broncos in the 2003 wild card. There was a second that matched the statistical criteria: Philip Rivers against the Indianapolis Colts in 2007. Regrettably, Philip decided to have the game of his career against prime Peyton Manning, so it fails the blowout criteria. In fact, in an unbelievable event that could only possibly happen to the Chargers, despite being the beneficiaries of a QB performance worthy of mentioning in this GOAT debate, the Chargers still found a way to be trailing in the fourth quarter of that game.

My apologies. I never miss a chance to laugh at the Chargers' poor circumstances. Back to Jordan and Peyton.

In Peyton's game, he generated 1.15 EPA/Play on 26 touches and was up 31-3 by half. This is very very similar to Jordan generating 1.13 EPA/Play on 22 touches and being up 27-7 at the half. Additionally, both players did it against top ten defences in the NFL, not weak competition. The similarities don't end there and are weirdly plentiful, but more important for my purposes are the differences.

The first and most obvious is that the Colts were at home, and were favoured to beat the Broncos. Not favoured by much (a three point spread at home is more indicative of a pick 'em scenario), but nevertheless not seven point road underdogs like Jordan and the Packers were. Second, and most importantly, when Peyton went up 31-3 at half against Denver, his estimated Win Probability (according to NFLFastR) was 100 percent. The game was over.

When Jordan took a 27-7 lead into halftime, the Win Probability model gave the Packers just an 85 percent chance to win. The reason for this is that this game was nowhere near over, because Dallas's offence came to play, which is what people have already forgotten about, despite the game just happening earlier this week. Contrary to the 2003 Broncos, who rolled over and died under Peyton's relentless assault, the Cowboys generated positive EPA/Play this game.

Before you start, I don't want to hear about garbage time. Remember what the Jaguars did in the wild card round last year. Read about it here if you have to. There is officially no such thing as garbage time in a playoff game any longer.

Yes, the Dallas offence was awful in the first half and dug themselves a big hole, but they came out and scored on four of their six second half touches, and came perilously close to scoring on a fifth. Give all the credit in the world to the Cowboys. Much like Jacksonville last year, they had hearts like lions. They did not want their season to end.

It seems ludicrous to say this, but this game had comeback written all over it, especially in light of what we saw last year in Jacksonville. If Dallas had scored again instead of stalling on the GB 27 in the fourth quarter, this is a one score game. This comeback possibility isn't merely theoretical. We saw it. If the Packers had pulled a Chargers and scored three second half points, they stood every chance of losing, but they didn't.

Why?

Because they had Jordan Love, and he had the greatest playoff performance of all time. It's not as good statistically as Peyton's, but even to a numbers guy like me, stats aren't everything. I'm a bigger Cowboys believer than most. I believe they were the third best team in the NFL this year (behind only SF and Baltimore), but they just ran into a buzzsaw named Jordan Love. Sometimes these things happen.

Jordan took one of the NFL's best teams and made everybody laugh very hard at them. He humiliated them, and in the process he possibly minimized his own greatness, but hopefully in reading this you've learned better. You've just watched the best it's ever been done. Spread the word. Instead of laughing at Dallas (I'm looking at you Detroit fans), I suggest that a better use of your time would be to pray that the 49ers are going to take out Jordan for you, because if they don't, who will?

In no way am I saying the Packers are Super Bowl favourites, but what I am saying is that if they get past San Francisco, look out below. Since the end of the cold stretch, nobody has had any luck stopping Jordan Love. Do you really want to make the bet that you'll be the first?

I didn't think so.