The Green Bay Packers have a great quarterback tradition. Bart Starr, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers may be the best three quarterbacks to ever play for one team.
Jordan Love now has the potential to carry on that legacy. After a difficult start to his first full season behind center, he began to pull it all together in the second half. Another former Packers quarterback has the opportunity to build his own legacy.
According to Justis Mosqueda of The Acme Packing Company, a former Green Bay Packers quarterback has started with a new team.
St. Louis Battlehawks quarterback A.J. McCarron, a former Alabama Crimson Tide national championship winner, was unable to play on Sunday due to an ankle injury acquired in Week 7 of the UFL season. Manny Wilkins, his replacement, may be familiar to fans of the Green Bay Packers.
After three seasons with the Arizona State Sun Devils, Wilkins signed as an undrafted free agent with the Packers in 2019. While he did not make the roster that included Aaron Rodgers and Tom Boyle, Wilkins was signed to the team’s practice squad for his first season.
After 2019, Wilkins was handed a reserve/futures contract, which kept him on the team in 2020 until Jordan Love was drafted, prompting Wilkins’ release on April 27.
Wilkins appears to have received no NFL interest since that date in 2020, as he did not join with any football team until February 2023, when he resurfaced in the XFL.
When it was announced that McCarron, one of the few players in the running for the UFL Most Valuable Player Award, would not play, many viewed Wilkins as a major question mark in this week’s game against the DC Defenders—Wilkins had not started a single football game at any level since his senior season at Arizona State in 2018.
The Packers are looking for a big season from Jordan Love.
Love had a 96.1 passer rating in his first full-time season in 2023, completing 64.2% of his throws for 4,159 yards, 32 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions.
As the season began, Love struggled at times. It was tough for him to throw deep throws accurately. He sometimes struggled to read defenses. Some of his new offensive linemen, as well as the team’s young receivers and tight ends, were learning and adjusting to their new circumstances. It was usual for young receivers to run incorrect pass patterns, resulting in incomplete passes or interceptions, depending on the mistake.
Despite a downturn in October, Love finished the season as an excellent quarterback. Love completed 70.3% of his passes for 2,150 yards over the final eight games of the regular season. He threw 18 touchdowns and only one interception. During that time, he posted the league’s second-highest quarterback rating at 112.7.
Love had a great game against the Cowboys in the playoffs. A total of 16-of-21 passes were completed, yielding 272 yards and three touchdowns. Before failing to complete his final pass of the game, he had a perfect passer rating. He finished with a quarterback rating of 157.2.
The organization expects more of the latter in 2024.
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