Packers 2025 offseason position preview: Quarterback

Paul Bretl | 2/3/2025

GREEN BAY, Wis. — In the coming weeks we will be taking a position-by-position look at the Packers roster with our lens focused on what’s ahead and what’s needed at each position group.

Up first, let’s start with the Green Bay Packers’ quarterbacks.

Quarterback overview

Jordan Love’s second year as the starting quarterback for the Packers was a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Injuries during the first half of the season forced him to miss time and hampered his play to a degree. Out of the bye, we saw an impressive stretch from Weeks 11-15 where Love and the offense were heating up with five straight 30-plus point performances, only for both to cool off drastically during the team’s final three games of the season.

Love finished the season completing 63% of his passes at 7.9 yards per attempt with 25 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. Compared to the rest of the NFL, Love ranked 33rd in completion rate, fourth in yards per pass attempt, 10th in touchdowns–even with the missed time–and had the 12th-most interceptions, most of which came during the first half of the year.

“I think he is an ascending player that is going to get better and better and better,” said Matt LaFleur after the season. “And I think he takes, he approaches the game the right way.

“I love working with the guy every day,” LaFleur added. “That whole quarterback room, great synergy in there, and those guys are just, they’re about the team. They care for one another. They come to work with the right mentality every day.”

So, now heading into what will be Love’s third season as the starter, where does he need to improve to help this Packers team take that next step? As is often the case, there isn’t any one answer to this question, but head coach Matt LaFleur did tell us during his season-ending press conference that more consistent footwork was going to be a priority for Love this offseason.

Footwork is the foundation for a quarterback’s success on any given play. As quarterbacks coach Tom Clements has said previously, he usually has a good idea of how the pass turned out by watching the quarterback’s footwork.

Footwork, the cornerstone of a quarterback’s performance, is more than just steps. It’s about executing the right drop to ensure timely throws, maintaining balance, and keeping the feet in constant motion. This synchronized movement with the quarterback’s eyes is crucial for a successful play. Any deviation from this can disrupt the quarterback’s mechanics, leading to inaccurate passes or mistimed plays.

In the Philadelphia game, specifically, LaFleur mentioned that on certain drops, Love’s footwork got a little loose, which can disrupt the timing and rhythm of the passing play, especially when the ball is supposed to be out quickly. This also wasn’t the first time throughout the season that this happened either. As Love navigated a knee and groin injury during the first half of the year, the lack of practice time hurt some of those fundamental components of playing the position.

“I think just the one thing I did talk to him about was just the consistency of his footwork on some of these plays,” LaFleur said on Tuesday. “I think he would be the first to tell you the same thing because there were some instances throughout the course of the season and specifically in this last game where the rhythm and timing, especially when you have a rhythm play, like quick game for example, just that left-right footwork that we take just hitting your back foot and letting it rip.

“Or if you do take a hitch, you gotta take your checkdown, typically, or progress on. So I would say that, because I think that’s the foundation of great quarterback play is the fundamentals, the techniques, the footwork.”

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What the Packers couldn’t overcome against the NFC’s top opponents this season were the slow starts. A lack of execution and self-inflicted mistakes were often the root cause behind those woes, but as far as what contributed to those issues over and over again, that’s still an answer the Packers are searching for.

As LaFleur will often point out, the quarterback gets all the credit when the team wins and all the blame when the team loses, but in both instances, it’s a group effort to get to either of those points.

Throughout LaFleur’s conversation with the media following the season, he referenced things that went wrong around Love against the Eagles that contributed to the offensive struggles. On the interception by Darius Slay, LaFleur noted that the receiver needed to do a better job of stacking the defender to help create a more open throwing window.

On the interception over the middle, the receiver was supposed to break in at 20 yards from the line of scrimmage but instead did so at 15 yards, throwing off the entire play design. LaFleur also noted the litany of dropped passes throughout the season, and that Love also dealt with steady pressure from the Eagles’ four-man front as well.

Now, none of that is to absolve Love of his up-and-down play this season. When asked if Love needed to perform better, without hesitating, LaFleur said, “absolutely.” But those examples provided by LaFleur adde context around the issues that the Packers’ offense ran into and showcase that it wasn’t any one player behind it all, but it was on everyone.

“You’ve got to maximize all your opportunities,” LaFleur said of the offense’s struggles. “You’ve got to execute. I can tell you specifically since it’s so fresh this last game, we didn’t do a great job, like there was pressure all day in the pocket in the passing game. There were some runs, there were some bad looks that we ran into, and there were other times when we had some running lanes and we don’t win our one-on-one, we don’t win our block. And that’s football. We’ve just got to collectively as a group – all of us, myself as much as anybody – we’ve got to be better.”

The onus of getting the most out of Love and, therefore, the offense as a whole also falls on LaFleur’s shoulders as well. Are there more opportunities to get Love on the move to add another dimension to the offense and to help open up opportunities in the passing game? Did the Packers’ heavy usage of the gap running scheme and running out of shotgun with Josh Jacobs impact the team’s performance off of play-action and in the passing game?

And while versatility is great and allows the offense to adjust weekly based on the opponent, what can the Packers hang their hat on? If it’s 3rd-and-4 and they need a first down, what’s their go-to play?

All of that and a lot more will have to be examined by LaFleur and the coaching staff this offseason as they do a deep self-scout to figure out why this Packers team, especailly the offense, continued to come up short against the NFC’s best.

“There’s a lot of lessons along the way,” LaFleur said. “Sometimes those lessons can be tough, but you’d better be mindful of those and work on the areas that you have to improve upon in order to get over the hump or get past that point.”

Positional need

The need here for Green Bay is low. Along with Love being under contract for the foreseeable future, Malik Willis still has one year remaining on his rookie deal. Sean Clifford is also under contract for the 2025 seasons as well.

Now, having said that, while I wouldn’t expect any free agency dollars or a draft pick to go towards the quarterback position, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Packers sign an undrafted rookie after the draft to compete with Clifford for that practice squad role.

This is something that we’ve seen the Packers do throughout the years under Gutekunst as they constantly churn and look for upgrades on the back-end of the quarterback depth chart. During the 2021 season it was Kurt Benkert. In 2022, it was Danny Etling. In 2023, it was Alex McGough, and last year it was Clifford after the team added Willis.

“I just think having young, talented quarterbacks on your roster that the coaches can develop, I just think is really healthy and important for a franchise,” said Brian Gutekunst last offseason.

Salary cap outlook

On paper–and Gutekunst agrees–the Packers are in a good position with the salary cap this offseason. With a large number of players still on inexpensive rookie deals, Green Bay currently has $42.14 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap, which in terms of spending power, ranks as the 13th-most among the NFL.

“I feel really good,” said Gutekunst about the Packers’ salary cap situation. “Russ (Ball) does a fantastic job with our cap and all the decisions we’ve made over the past few years has put us in the situation where we’re in pretty good shape right now. Again, we’ve got to keep making good decisions, and it’s never a one-year thing. You’re looking at two, three years down the road as far as how these things impact things.

“We have a lot of good players that are under rookie contracts right now, and we’ve got to make sure we’re able to extend those guys when that time comes, but I feel really good our ability to go do what we need to do to field a championship-level team.”

There are also ways to create more cap room if needed through a veteran roster cut or trade. In this instance, if a player’s cap hit–what’s on the salary cap books that season if the player is on the roster–is greater than their dead cap hit–which is money that’s already been paid to the player but hasn’t yet counted towards the salary cap and remains on the books even if that player is on a new team–then there will be cap space gained by the team if they moved on from that player.

Another avenue to create cap space is through a restructure–which we saw the Packers utilize heavily during the 2021 and 2022 offseasons. In short, this is kicking the salary cap can down the road by taking cap charges from the current year, such as a portion of a player’s base salary, and converting it to a signing bonus so the cap hit can be pro-rated over the remaining life of the contract.

The benefit in the moment is that it creates cap space now. However, the downside is that the player’s cap hit in future seasons is now inflated. If the Packers have to go down this path to improve the roster, Gutekunst is willing to do so, but he prefers to operate from the team’s current cap position now that they no longer have the salary cam impact of those past restructures on the books.

“I feel really good where we’re at right now, would love to stay in that kind of flexibility year to year,” said Gutekunst. “We’ll certainly try to do that, but at the same time if we kinda have to do some different things because we have an opportunity to acquire a player that can impact our team like these two guys did, we’ll do it.”

Free agents available

As I just said, don’t expect the Packers to invest in the quarterback position during free agency. But part of this preview series is taking a look at who is available in free agency as well as in the draft.

Sam Darnold
Marcus Mariota
Jacoby Brissett
Jimmy Garoppolo
Andy Dalton
Mason Rudolph
Jameis Winston
Justin Fields
Mac Jones
Drew Lock
Zach Wilson
Daniel Jones

What about the NFL draft?

As this pre-draft process continues to unfold, pay close attention to the quarterbacks projected to go late Day 3 or undrafted. If the Packers are going to add someone to the mix, I believe it’s going to be an undrafted player who has a trait or two that regularly shows up on tape that the Packers wants to take a swing on developing.

With help from PFF’s big board, here is a look at who makes up this year’s quarterback class:

Cam Ward, Miami
Shedeur Sanders, Colorado
Dillon Gabriel, Oregon
Jalen Milroe, Alabama
Will Howard, Ohio State
Riley Leonard, Notre Dame
Quinn Ewers, Texas
Kyle McCord, Syracuse
Kurtis Rourke, Indiana
Max Brosmer, Minnesota
Tyler Shough, Louisville
Graham Mertz, Florida
Seth Henigan, Memphis
Brady Cook, Missouri

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