When the clock struck triple zeros on January 12th, at the end of a long and miserable playoff slog in the wildcard round against the eventual champions, the Packers’ season was over.

As soon as the words “Final” flashed over the score, there was one thing on everyone’s minds: how do we do better next year.

While there’s no use in rehashing too much of that game, it’s worth pointing out the comedy of errors that played out that night. Keisean Nixon’s “fumble”, four starters on offense leaving the game with injuries, missed field goals, and three interceptions for Jordan Love. Simply, the offense and special teams dropped the ball in the playoffs (see what I did there?) once again.

This was the culmination of what can only be described as a rough season for Jordan Love.

Numerous lower body injuries all but robbed him of mobility throughout the season, and we can only speculate on how much the right elbow injury he sustained in week 18 actually affected him in Philadelphia.

Without a sense of confidence in his movement skills, Love was forced to rely on his arm talent and a gunslinger’s mentality to drive the offense for a majority of the season.

It’s easy to see the exact point he was able to finally “settle in” again, as from weeks one through nine Love threw a total of ten interceptions but. National pundits were quick to jump on the first half of the season, and label Love a turnover machine, whether earned or not, considering that from week ten to the wildcard game, he only threw one.

Even still, and despite missing about three games total on the season, Love finished as an extremely productive quarterback in 2024. Eleventh in touchdowns, sixth in touchdown percentage, twelfth in success percentage and twelfth in QB rating.

Now, as Love is set to enter his third season as the Packer’s starting QB, all eyes are squarely on him.

Is this a make it or break it season for Love?

In my opinion, no. But it’s clear that the 2024 Packers as a whole were too inconsistent to reach the highest levels of success.

The hallmark of every successful quarterback is whether they are actually put into a position to succeed by the team around them.

The Eagles proved this year that while a quarterback can uplift a team to championship heights, that should never be the entire plan.

The Packers’ offense was extremely effective last year, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

They ended fourth in offensive DVOA, eighth in EPA per play, and thirteenth in success rate. PFF had them as a top ten offense last year, Even still, the truth of the matter is that the Packers fell short, not only against the Eagles, but against every top tier team they faced. 0–2 against the Eagles, Lions and Vikings isn’t pretty, and they had questions to answer on offense this offseason.

Starting with perhaps the most important role for Jordan on the team: new quarterback coach Sean Mannion.

Mannion has the unenviable task of filling the giant shoes of legendary QB coach Tom Clements, who is the only person to have ever directly coached Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Jordan Love.

At age 70, it’s time for Clements to ride off into the sunset and await his inevitable induction into the Packers’ hall of fame. Mannion has his work cut out for him, and while there is no all-22 of Mannion coaching the QBs, or instant replay of his work in the film room, we can track how in-demand he was as a coach immediately upon retiring from playing, and draw our own conclusions.

We as fans can sometimes underestimate the impact that having the right or wrong positional coaches in place can have on players.

The emphasis placed on new defensive line coach Demarcus Covington is a recent example, but one can also think back to how Tom Clements’ three year departure from the Packers in 2019 affected Aaron Rodgers, and how desperate Rodgers was to reunite with his old QB coach in 2022.

From a player perspective, the Packers have not shied away from investing in offensive talent since Love took over. Since 2023, the team has drafted high draft picks in three receivers, two tight ends, a running back, and a pair of mammoth offensive linemen in Jordan Morgan and Anthony Belton.

The receiver room has been discussed a million times in a million different ways this offseason, and I’ll not triple the length of this article to do so again. I will however, allow the stats to speak for themselves.

% of 3rd down incompletions which were due to receiver error:

32.7% – Jordan Love
27.3% – Daniel Jones
18.9% – Joe Burrow
18.6% – Kirk Cousins
17.9% – Trevor Lawrence
17.6% – Drake Maye
17.2% – Caleb Williams
16.7% – Joe Flacco
16.0% – Patrick Mahomes
15.6% – Lamar Jackson
15.4%…

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) July 3, 2025

Instead, I’d like to circle back to the point about the importance of positional coaching. If the receivers once again fail to take a step forward in 2025, could we see wide receivers coach Ryan Mahaffey and passing game coordinator Jason Vrabel receive the blame (and a pink slip)?

To be clear, the Packers do not have a bad receiver room.

In fact, despite the lack of a “true no. 1 receiver” (cue Matt Lafluer vomiting), I’d wager that over half the league would trade their skill players for the Packers. Not only is it a diverse, upside heavy group of ultra-competitive players, it’s also one of the cheapest in the league. Despite the dropping problem, they were still 16th in receiving grade via PFF. Jayden Reed and Tucker Kraft were off to monster starts in 2024, and the (potentially early?) return of Christian Watson could turn this group into another monster entirely.

While it’s clearly been a point of emphasis in the Love era to go uber-young (and again, cheap) at offensive skill positions, I do wonder if the team could have benefited from the addition of a veteran in a mentor role. Think of Donald Driver during the early Rodgers era, or Marcedes Lewis just a few years ago.

Matt LaFleur has emphasized the importance of a player-led locker room, but I do sometimes wonder how that looks when you have the youngest roster in the league two years in a row. Do a few of these young players already look a bit more developed, in this alternate timeline? I’d love to jump into a dimensional portal and report back, but alas.

However, when looking ahead at 2025 it’s not hard to get excited about the new infusions of talent. Not only from the rookie trio of Golden, Belton and Williams, but the return of Marshawn Lloyd and Jordan Morgan from a medical redshirt year.

Lloyd and Morgan had question marks upon being drafted, but the upside was monstrous. I was particularly excited for what a thunder and lightning duo of Jacobs and Lloyd could look like, and few remember that several draft analysts, including Daniel Jeremiah, had Lloyd rated as the best running back in the draft last year. Morgan and Belton are huge additions to the offensive line (literally, at 311 and 335 lbs respectively), and as I’ve argued before, could represent a shift in offensive line philosophy as a whole for the Packers.

And last but not least, Matthew Golden and Savion Williams.

Unfortunately for national analysts, they will no longer get to use the easy talking point around the Packers, which for so long was the lack of a first round receiver taken by the team since 2002. And thank god for that, since the Packers have found such talents as Davante Adams, Jordy Nelson, Greg Jennings, etc. outside of the first round anyway.

Golden, I think, will be well worth the hype. With 4.29 40 speed and nuanced route running, he can help fill the void left by Christian Watson, though he’s certainly not a one for one replacement, as Golden is six inches shorter and fifteen pounds lighter. His main contribution, and the area I think he can most effectively help Love, is in the intermediate passing game. Love’s numbers there (65.7 per PFF) take a sharp dive when compared to short (85.4) and deep (80.1) area passing. Golden’s grade in that area? 96.6.

Savion Williams is a wildcard, but might be my favorite player in the entire 2025 draft class. His potential in the league is sky-high, and at TCU he did everything from running back to gadget receiver, played plenty of outside receiver, and even moonlighted as a wildcat quarterback (and if you believe the rumors, had the strongest arm on the TCU roster).

With all that versatility and speed, and player comps ranging from Cordarrelle Patterson to Deebo Samuel, you’d probably think he’s a smaller guy too right? Wrong. 6’5″ and 225lbs. With tons of refinement needed in his true receiver skill set, the Packers might prefer to mothball Williams for the year, but good luck keeping all that talent on the sideline this season.

Ultimately, when you look at the combined investments by the team into Jordan Love’s coach, his pass catchers, and his protection, there’s not much to complain about. It’s impossible to have a roster with zero holes on it, but GM Brian Gutekunst & Co. have put their money where their collective mouths are. Does the departure of Tom Clements make you nervous?

Of course, but the team moved decidedly to bring in a replacement a whole year early, and they still have a top ten coach in Matt Lafleur, and a future head coach in Adam Stenavich at OC to steady the ship. Do I wish there was a steady, reliable veteran receiver for Jordan?

Of course, but he’s voiced nothing but confidence in his guys in the past. The offensive line? How many teams in the league can say they’ve got not only five guys they believe in, but seven?

The team was proactive in building around Jordan this offseason, no doubt about it. And perhaps more importantly, Love himself feels good about the team, as indicated just a few weeks ago.