Jordan Love admits to "mortal sin" he committed during Packers OTAs
The Green Bay Packers are wrapping up their third and final week of OTAs and the reports, so far, surrounding Jordan Love have been encouraging. The young quarterback is also saying all the right things in his interviews. It's clear Love and the rest of the offense are taking advantage of their offseason workouts/practice sessions. […]
The Green Bay Packers are wrapping up their third and final week of OTAs and the reports, so far, surrounding Jordan Love have been encouraging.
The young quarterback is also saying all the right things in his interviews. It's clear Love and the rest of the offense are taking advantage of their offseason workouts/practice sessions. That's key because now is the time to grow and make mistakes, not in September.
As it turned out, Love committed a "mortal sin" on Tuesday, as defined by Packers quarterbacks coach Tom Clements and he wasn't afraid to admit it.
According to reports, Love took a big risk during the final two-minute drill by heaving a deep pass intended for Christian Watson in the middle of the end zone. Watson didn't come up with the ball -free agent pickup Tarvarius Moore did- and the drill ended with the defense coming away with a big play.
"That's a mortal sin – late over the middle. That's exactly what I did," Love told reporters Tuesday. "But there is a time and a place, you know, depending on the coverage, things that are going on, if a DB falls or something like that, but given the circumstances right there, that was exactly the mortal sin right there: late over the middle, ball kind of floats [and the] DB has a chance to go make [the play].
"Christian [Watson], he doesn't really know what the DB's at, so it's hard for him to kind of go up and get the ball. But you can see right there – [it was] a mortal sin."
Sure, it was a mistake. But this is the time of year to make said mistakes. The key here, however, is Love's accountability. Owning up to the mistake allows him to not only move on from it, but most importantly, it allows him to learn from it.
The aggressiveness to try and make a play is also something to get excited about. Love isn't here to dink-and-dunk his way to victories. He's going to be more than willing to take risks and shots in a responsible fashion.
Those two traits -accountability and smart aggressiveness- are keys to efficient NFL quarterback play.
"I think I had an option right there on the sideline," Love later explained. "[It's a] learning situation. Maybe hit him, get out of bounds, get some yards and be able to finish that two-minute drive maybe with a score, so it's all learning right now. This is a great time to be able to kind of push those boundaries."
Right now, it's all about process. Sure, the results matter, too. The process in this situation is to learn from the mistake and find out the alternative ways to handle it, next time.
Love did just that. And, there's little reason to think he won't correct it next time.
"One of the things we've talked about in that room is just how important is really the process of playing quarterback," head coach Matt LaFleur told reporters. "I'm less concerned about the end result right now, but I do believe that if the process is correct, he is going to be more consistent.
"So within that, it's just the footwork, the clean mechanics, keeping a base in the pocket, being able to throw at any point in time. Just the rhythm and the timing, that's something that we've really stressed. I think he's done a good job in particular this week of making some really significant strides."
Featured image via Mark Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports
