Packers GM discusses contract future of Jordan Love

Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst spoke with reporters Thursday and confirmed he plans to offer starting quarterback Jordan Love a noteworthy contract extension this offseason. 

"I think certainly, that’ll be important for our football team to have some stability there," Gutekunst said about the situation, per Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. "Jordan and his representation, I think they’re really good people. So, we’ll start working toward that sometime in the next couple of months."

Last offseason, the Packers essentially replaced the fifth-year option included in Love's rookie contract with an extension that kept his rights attached to the club through the 2024 campaign. Green Bay then began this season at 2-5, and Gutekunst hinted at the time that the campaign's final 10 games could determine Love's long-term future with the organization. 

Love ultimately guided the Packers to a 9-8 mark, a playoff berth and a postseason win at the Dallas Cowboys before he nearly earned a divisional-round victory at the Super-Bowl-bound San Francisco 49ers. 

"We’ve talked about over the last couple of years just how much he needed to play, Jordan particularly," Gutekunst said about Love's improvement throughout his first season as a full-time NFL starter. "But obviously, we had a lot of other players who needed to play as well. And I think the more they played, the more comfortable they got. And I think there was a little bit of a shift somewhere in the middle there where we just started focusing on getting better and maybe not just focusing on the results as much as maybe we were. And just say, let’s just get better from day to day, week to week."

According to ESPN stats, Love finished the 2023 regular season ranked ninth in the NFL among qualified players with a 62.1 adjusted QBR, 11th with a 96.1 passer rating and second with 32 touchdowns through the air. 

Despite such numbers, one unnamed NFL executive told Mike Sando of The Athletic in December that the Packers should embrace a "play-it-out-and-franchise-tag" mentality regarding Love's future since the 2020 first-round draft pick has only 18 regular-season starts on his career résumé. 

"You have to make the decision on whether or not he has the skill set to elevate lesser talent around him," the executive added. 

It sounds like Gutekunst has already made his decision ahead of Super Bowl LVIII.