Super Bowl Champion Believes Jordan Love Could Get Matt LaFleur Fired

Monday Night Football against the Philadelphia Eagles was certainly not Jordan Love’s finest hour. Not by a long shot. His performance was so bad that it brought the over-reactors out of their caves on sports talk TV on Tuesday. And they’ve got some big feelings about Mr. Love now.

The Green Bay Packers QB completed around 55 percent of his passes for just 176 yards with no TDs or INTs. And he fumbled twice, one of which he lost. And boy, was that an ugly one to lose. Love was in the grasp of a defender as he attempted to “make a play”, but instead lost control of the ball before he could throw it away, resulting in a turnover.

This outing was bad enough for First Take‘s Chris Canty to suggest that Love’s poor play could even get head coach Matt LaFleur “fired.”

“I’m very concerned. Jordan Love is bad, and he’s probably gonna get his coach fired if he can’t get it fixed. That’s where we at,” Canty began.

“Here’s why it’s very fair. New team President Ed Policy, when he took over the job this year, he didn’t extend general manager Brian Gutekunst or head coach Matt LaFleur. And they’re in the penultimate year of their contracts… There’s a reason why he hit the pause button on that,” he added.

It was such a hot take that even hot take merchant Stephen A. Smith couldn’t believe what he was hearing, calling it “very harsh.” And it was, indeed, harsh.

Love and the Packers offense are not an elite top 10 unit, but they are in the top half when it comes to most meaningful metrics. Love is putting up career highs in completion percentage (68.9) and yards per game (249.7) while also sporting a pretty solid 13-5 TD-TO ratio and a 103.0 passer rating. These aren’t exactly the numbers you would think would get a coach as well-entrenched as LaFleur sent packing.

Canty went on to say that every part of the Packers team is playing at a high level except the QB. He must not have noticed the decimation that has been dealt to Green Bay’s receiving corps over the last few weeks. But nuance isn’t generally the strong suit of ESPN’s talking heads these days.

And it wasn’t just Canty piling on Love. On ESPN’s other flagship sports blah-blah show, Get Up!, four-time All-Pro center Jeff Saturday, who spent most of his career snapping the ball to the great Peyton Manning, said he thinks Love “ain’t the guy.” And the big reason for that is his penchant for making silly, risky plays.

“Yeah, he ain’t the guy. That’s what you’re gonna get. I appreciate—when you see Jordan Love in big moments. Half-time, we’re going into halftime, we’ve got three points secured. You can’t make that decision.”

Saturday is referring to that aforementioned and ridiculously ill-advised fumble Love had right before the half. The Packers were well within field goal range with about 30 seconds left when that happened, which meant he basically threw three points in the trash. In the end, the Packers lost 10-7, which makes that three-point mistake feel even more impactful.