Packers hope they didn't lose Jordan Love, too, against Eagles (2024)

Matt LaFleur was clearly and understandably perturbed about his team losing what he felt was a very winnable football game.

But even more importantly, the Green Bay Packers' coach must hope that he didn’t lose his $220 million rising-star quarterback in the process.

Of all the things that went wrong during the Packers’ 34-29 season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday night at Arena Corinthians in São Paulo, Brazil — and there was plenty that went wrong — all those issues were secondary to concerns about the health and status of quarterback Jordan Love, who sustained what appeared to be a lower left leg injury in the closing seconds of the loss.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” LaFleur said of Love's injury.

Love did not speak with reporters in Brazil before leaving the Packers’ locker room under his own power without crutches and no major noticeable limp.

The injury happened on the Packers’ final offensive possession, after new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s unit allowed the Eagles to melt away nearly 7½ minutes of clock during a 16-play, 67-yard drive that ended in kicker Jake Elliott’s 21-yard field goal with just 27 seconds left to play.

After Keisean Nixon decided to take the ball out of the end zone — instead of taking a touchback and getting the ball on the Green Bay 30-yard line — on the ensuing kickoff, the Packers offense had 22 seconds and no timeouts to work with as Love & Co. took over at their own 16.

Love found Jayden Reed for a 33-yard gain on the first play from scrimmage, with Reed getting out of bounds with 15 seconds left.

On the ensuing play, though, Love was pressured and was somewhat in the grasp of Eagles defenders Jalen Carter and Josh Sweat as he shoveled the ball to running back Josh Jacobs.

Carter, who was lying on the field with an arm wrapped around Love’s left leg, was pulling on Love just as Sweat was hitting him high. Love’s leg bent awkwardly beneath him and Carter as Jacobs grabbed the loose ball and ran for a 4-yard gain.

“Obviously, you don't want to see any of your teammates get hurt, but obviously you don't want to see the leader of your team get hurt,” said Jacobs, who finished the night with 16 carries for 84 yards, including 32- and 22-yard explosive runs. "We don't know the severity of his injury, but hopefully he's OK.”

Love, who finished the night having completed 17 of 34 passes for 260 yards with two touchdowns and one interception (83.0 rating), writhed in pain on the turf before being helped off the field and to the bench area by team physician Dr. Patrick McKenzie and director of sports medicine/head athletic trainer Nate Weir. Love remained on the bench even after the game ended, with Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts coming over to shake his hand while players gathered on the field.

He was eventually able to walk off the field and toward the locker room with minimal help from Weir and Jacobs.

“Whatever it is, we’re going to back him 100%,” wide receiver Christian Watson said. “We know what kind of guy he is. How he approaches everything. Whatever it is, I know he’s going to get through it. We’re going to get through it.”

With Love on the bench, newly acquired backup quarterback Malik Willis threw an incomplete pass before being sacked by ex-University of Wisconsin standout Zach Baun as the clock ran out.

“All the little things matter. We’ve got to tighten up on the little details like the one drop I had,” said Reed, who finished the night with four catches for 138 yards and a pair of touchdowns (a 33-yard run on a jet sweep and a 70-yard catch from Love). “Just got to keep working on finding ways to get better.

“We did a lot of things that we know that we can be better at, so we’ve just got to attack it going forward and work on those things so we can be better as a whole.”

Despite getting three turnovers (two interceptions and a fumble recovery when new Eagles center Cam Jurgens prematurely snapped the ball to Hurts in the first quarter), the Packers converted those takeaways into only nine points on three Brayden Narveson field goals.

On four trips inside the Eagles’ 20-yard line — including starting twice inside the red zone after the first two turnovers — the Packers managed only one touchdown in those four tries.

“There were a lot of opportunities out there to win the game. We weren’t good enough in the red area,” said LaFleur, whose team was penalized 10 times for 71 yards and had three other penalties either offset or get declined. “There were a lot of penalties, a lot of sloppy play.

“Our defense, to force three takeaways against a really good offense, I feel like you should win the game. … But we didn’t capitalize on those opportunities. To come away with nine points off three turnovers, that’s not good enough. That’s not going to get it done.”

Defensively, not only did Hafley’s group allow the long drive at the end of the game, the Packers also had no answers for Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, who finished the night with 24 carries for 109 yards and scored three touchdowns: an 18-yard TD catch, and 11- and 2-yard TD runs.

“Defensively, I think we know what we have to do to improve from this game. Obviously, it’s just one game, Week 1. So, the world’s not over,” said veteran safety Xavier McKinney, who had one of the Packers’ two interceptions. (Jaire Alexander had the other.) “Obviously, we’ve got a lot of time to fix it.

“But what was said in the locker room is just having a sense of urgency knowing that we’ve just got to go into next week ready to fix the things that we did wrong. And we’re going to be critical of ourselves watching this film on the way back, and we’re going to be better, a lot better, next week. We know we didn't hold up to the standard that we wanted to be defensively.”

The Packers were set to leave São Paulo immediately after the game to fly back to Green Bay, giving them a lengthy flight to contemplate what went wrong — and worry about what’s next for their burgeoning star quarterback.

“It was definitely a sloppy game, I think, from us. There were some uncharacteristic things that we did as a staff, quite frankly, and that trickled down to our players,” LaFleur said. “Ultimately, we’ve all got to look ourselves hard in the mirror and find ways to get better because tonight, obviously, wasn’t good enough.”