'Each year was a step': Is Jordan Love on the same SB path as Favre, Rodgers?

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Brett Favre won his lone Super Bowl at age 27 and in his sixth NFL season. Aaron Rodgers won his at the same age and at the same point in his NFL career.

Guess how old Jordan Love, the current Green Bay Packers quarterback, is?

And how many seasons he has played?

And for how many of those he has been the starter?

The correct answers: 27, six and three.

While there is no magic age or level of experience required to win a Super Bowl, Love appears to be in the same sweet spot as his predecessors.

The transitions from Favre to Rodgers and then from Rodgers to Love have been compared and dissected ever since the Packers drafted Love No. 26 in 2020. There have been many similarities.

Favre was a Super Bowl-winning, three-time MVP when the Packers drafted Rodgers No. 24 in 2005. Rodgers sat behind Favre for three seasons before the veteran left and Rodgers took over as the starter. By the time the Packers drafted Love, Rodgers was a Super Bowl-winning, three-time MVP quarterback. Love then sat for three years before Rodgers left and Love took over.

Like Favre and Rodgers, Love had ups and downs his first two seasons as the starter before elevating his game in Year 3.

A Week 16 concussion this season robbed Love of a couple of regular-season games, but he still ranked in the top 10 in the NFL (among qualified QBs) in passer rating, touchdown percentage, fewest interceptions, average pass completion length, touchdown-to-interception ratio and completions of 25-plus yards. He is tied for sixth in the NFL in games with a 100-plus rating (eight), and the Packers were 7-0-1 in those games.

In 15 games, Love threw 23 touchdowns and a career-low six interceptions -- cutting his interception total nearly in half from the same number of games last season.

"I think he's taken his game to another level," Packers coach Matt LaFleur said late in the regular season.

On Saturday, the Packers (9-7-1) face the Chicago Bears (11-6) at Soldier Field (8 p.m. ET, Prime Video) in the wild-card round as 1.5-point favorites, per DraftKings Sportsbook. With Love leading the Packers to the playoffs for the third time in as many seasons -- winning only once -- could he follow in the footsteps of Favre and Rodgers and lead the Packers to a Super Bowl championship?

MIKE HOLMGREN ALWAYS kept an empty seat next to him on the team plane when he coached the Packers from 1992 to 1998.

It wasn't because he wanted extra space.

That seat had a purpose.

"If you got called up to that seat," Holmgren said in a recent interview, "usually you were in trouble."

Holmgren couldn't tell you how many times he called Favre to the front of the plane on the way home from a road loss. He lost count at some point in those first few seasons.

There was, however, one time when Favre made the walk of shame up the aisle without a summons to appear.

"He came up and just sat down next to me, and I [barked at] him, 'What do you want?'" Holmgren recalled. "And he goes, 'I get it, Mike. I get it.'

"I think that's when we took off. I always believed in him, but then all of a sudden he realized that if I do these things, then I'll take the next step."

Before that, Holmgren and Favre had what the coach called, "The tough-love years."

Some might forget that the Packers went 9-7 in each of Holmgren's first three seasons as Packers coach, mostly with Favre at quarterback. Favre became the starter four games into Holmgren's first year, 1992. The Packers lost to the Vikings in the regular-season finale to miss the playoffs that season. Favre threw three interceptions -- all of them to the same player, safety Vencie Glenn.

In 1993, the Packers made the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade and beat the Lions in a wild-card game before losing to the Cowboys in the divisional round. Still, Favre threw more interceptions (24) than touchdowns (19) that season.

A third straight 9-7 season got them into the playoffs, where they won a wild-card game before getting trounced by the Cowboys again. Favre's numbers flipped to 33 touchdowns and 14 interceptions in 1994.

"Each year was a step," Holmgren said.

But for the Packers to make a Super Bowl run, Holmgren knew something had to change. And that something, in part, was Favre. Holmgren said as much during their exit interview following the 1994 season.

"I remember distinctly the conversation I had with Brett," Holmgren said. "We were 9-7, 9-7, 9-7, so I said, 'Look, we've got to eliminate this and this and this from your game.'"

Favre's reply, according to Holmgren: "Mike, that's just how I play."

"And I said, 'OK, do you want to go to the Super Bowl?'"

Favre, of course, replied in the affirmative.

"So I said, 'Play the way you play, and we'll get to the playoffs, perhaps, and go 9-7. But if you want to go to the Super Bowl and take us there, I'm asking you to really focus on these things,'" Holmgren said.

The next season, 1995, Favre threw 38 touchdowns and cut his interception total to 13 -- the lowest of any of his first four seasons. The Packers went 11-5, won the NFC Central, won two playoff games and lost in the NFC Championship Game to the Cowboys. Favre won the first of three straight NFL MVPs.

The Super Bowl season followed in 1996 and then a Super Bowl loss in the 1997 season.

"We had that mountaintop moment," Holmgren said. "It just took a bit to get there."

WHEN RODGERS TOOK over as the starter in 2008, the Packers were coming off a 13-3 season and a run to the NFC Championship Game in Favre's final season.

Rodgers was in his fourth season and third with Mike McCarthy as his coach.

The transition was made more difficult because Favre retired, unretired and wanted to come back to the Packers, who had already decided to move forward with Rodgers.

Rodgers showed two important things that season: that he could play through injuries (he didn't miss any action despite separating his throwing shoulder early in the season) and that he had a major league arm.

"I think he just really answered the bell," McCarthy said recently. "He showed he could do it."

Yet the Packers went 6-10 in large part because they couldn't finish out close games. Still, the Packers gave Rodgers a six-year, $63 million contract extension after just seven starts that season.

In 2009, McCarthy opened up more of the offense to Rodgers, gave his quarterback the green light more often, and the Packers went 11-5.

While 2010 wasn't Rodgers' best statistical season, it turned into a magical run to win Super Bowl XLV, where he was the MVP. With two games to go, the Packers were 8-6, and Rodgers had just missed a game because of a concussion. The Packers needed to win their last two games -- and get some help -- to grab a wild-card playoff spot.

A year later, the Packers went 15-1 and Rodgers won the first of his four MVPs.

"In '09, I felt like we just really came into our own as a football team the second year and really just cut him loose, frankly," McCarthy said. "I thought the second half of '09, he was the best player in football. Then we won it all in '10, and in '11 he won the MVP and officially became the best player in football."

SOME BELIEVE LOVE'S progress to date has tracked similarly to Rodgers pre-Super Bowl. After Love struggled through the first half of the 2023 season, his first as the starter, he got hot. He threw 18 touchdowns and one interception over the final eight games, and the Packers went from 3-6 to 9-8 and into the playoffs, where they rolled McCarthy's Cowboys 48-32 in the wild-card round. In that game, Love was 16-of-21 for 272 yards, 3 touchdowns and no interceptions.

"With Aaron, in 2009, just having him run the full scope of the offense was the thing that allowed him to take that big jump, and I see that same thing in Jordan now," McCarthy said. "I really like Jordan Love."

But Love and the Packers haven't won a playoff game since that day in Dallas. They lost 24-21 to the 49ers a week later, with Love throwing a game-ending interception. Last season, they flamed out quickly in a 22-10 wild-card loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles.

McCarthy has been living in Green Bay since his tenure as the Cowboys coach ended last offseason. He not only has spent the year studying NFL games, he also attended several Packers games.

"Obviously he had his huge game against us," McCarthy said. "That was a statement game down there in the playoff game. He's had some mistakes, the interception he had out there in San Francisco after that, but the gauge to really judge him by -- and with all these quarterbacks, I've always felt -- is his confidence level.

"I see a much, much more confident quarterback. I got to see him play live four times this year, and I like him. I think there's definitely more there."

If the seventh-seeded Packers reach the Super Bowl, Love might have to play a major role. They were decimated by injuries. They ended the regular season with 15 players on injured reserve, including defensive end Micah Parsons, defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt, tight end Tucker Kraft and center Elgton Jenkins.

"I just think he's doing some absurd things," Parsons said of Love. "I think his confidence, the throws he's making, the ability to stand under pressure, he's doing some things that guys aren't doing in Year 9 and 10.

"I think he's progressed early on, and it could be because of the guy he was under for so long [Rodgers]. He has this confidence and swagger about him, and the way he carries himself, I think he's just going to keep getting better and better."

If it doesn't happen this year, that doesn't mean it won't ever happen. But with LaFleur entering the final year of his contract this offseason and his status potentially up in the air, Holmgren believes there is one thing that could impact it.

"If Love can stay with the same system and same coach for a while, that helps," Holmgren said. "That really helps. LaFleur and those guys there right now are doing a good job. They're consistent, they've been there a while. So he's in a good spot."