The Green Bay Packers are trying to figure out if Jordan Love can follow in Aaron Rodgers' footsteps and continue the franchise's decades-long tradition of quarterback greatness. And that could mean Love gets a lot of time this preseason -- something Rodgers didn't need in recent seasons.
When asked how much action Love might see in the Packers' three preseason games, head coach Matt LaFleur indicated that he "potentially" could see a significant amount of time as the team preps for Week 1.
"There's a lot of things I'd like to see out of him," LaFleur said. "It's more or less just the process of becoming better each and every day and the command that he has. Certainly, you want to give him every opportunity.
"You can't give him enough reps. Just making those incremental improvements and becoming more consistent on a daily basis. I'm really excited. He definitely has complete command of our offense. There's no doubt about it. He's put the work in, he knows the ins and outs. Now it's going to apply that in a real situation."
But LaFleur indicated that the plan was "fluid" and that the Packers will "adjust accordingly" if anything hits a snag along the way. General manager Brian Gutekunst laid out the flip side of giving your starting quarterback major reps in August.
"It's a little bit of that double-edged thing," Gutekunst said. "You'd like to see him play a lot if you can promise me that we can protect him and keep him healthy. I think that will be something Matt, as he goes through it, it's a feel thing for what he feels he needs.
"So, yeah, I go back and forth, and there's part of me with all these young players -- not just Jordan -- that you want to see them play a lot. Then there's times you want to bubble wrap them and get to the first game and figure it out."
The Packers also will have two joint practice sessions this preseason. First, they head to Cincinnati to work with the Bengals for one practice on Aug. 9. After that, Green Bay will host joint training camp practices with the New England Patriots on Aug. 16-17.
Some teams will treat those competitive practice looks against another team as tantamount to live-game action, which Gutekunst suggested could change Love's workload calculus.
"I think, talking to Matt and working through those conversations, I think that's going to be something that as we go, he feels," Gutekunst said. "And luckily we have a couple of these (joint) practices that we will be able to go against some other teams, and that will be really important for us as well."
On Monday night, Packers president Mark Murphy indicated that, like Rodgers' first season as a starter in 2008, the team might take half the season or more to evaluate Love. The Packers finished 6-10 in Rodgers' first season, but he played well enough to put the team's minds at ease.
"I'm comparing it a little bit to Aaron's first year as a starter, yeah, I'd say at least half a season to know (whether Love is the franchise QB)," Murphy said. "And I think even though we ended up with a losing record that year, but we saw enough of Aaron to know that we had something special."
