The Green Bay Packers knew that there would be some struggles in the 2023 season given the overturn on the roster the last few offseason. This season they underwent another massive change with Jordan Love taking over the starting quarterback job from Aaron Rodgers.
A Packers fan told me last week I was being “revisionist” and “a clown” because “hindsight is 20/20” and there was no way to know how Aaron’s career would go at the time of the pick.
I will start by saying that I wasn’t happy picking Love where they did with so many players available that would have immediately added to a Super Bowl contender.
But I can kind of see some logic when you look at what was happening in the world. Rodgers had just shown a possible bit of decline. Covid was threatening both NFL and NCAA seasons. If the following NCAA season was shut down AND Rodgers was in an actual decline due to age, the Packers would have come into a season without the chance to draft a potential starter at QB because there wouldn’t have been another year of growth for underclassman. IF that happened they would have had to either draft a guy that was passed over in the entire previous draft or who missed a year of development or decide to wait for a different QB while drafting other players to build the roster. The covid years were tumultuous. Gute hedged his bets against covid and lost on that draft. I still don’t like the pick. But with the context that specific pic does make a bit of sense.