Jordan Love speaks of offensive struggles and defensive frustration, but the Green Bay Packers need on-field execution to match his leadership talk.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is talking like he's trying to take responsibility for his team's two-game losing skid.
It has been ugly, to say the least. The Packers scored just seven points in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football in Week 10. The weekend before that, they were able to score only 13 against the Carolina Panthers.
For those keeping track, that's 20 points in two games. Extrapolate the numbers out to the Packers' three losses this season, and the Pack are averaging just 10 points per game.
That's good enough, especially considering the fact that this team has the pieces to be elite and maybe even a Super Bowl contender.
The defense has done it's part, holding the Panthers to 16 last week and the Eagles to just 10 in Monday night.
It's Love and the offense that just aren't getting the job done.
"You feel like as an offense you're letting the defense down," Love said after the loss, per Rob Demovsky of ESPN.
"I know as a defense, they definitely have every reason to look at us and say, 'What are you guys doing? You guys need to figure it out and help us out and put up some more points,' because they're doing a great job," Love continued. "It's frustrating, but we'll stay together. We'll keep the energy high and find ways to get better and be better as an offense."
Love is talking like a player willing to take responsibility for his faults. By taking the negative and putting a positive spin on it, he's also acting like a leader. There's something about a highly-paid NFL quarterback falling on his sword when things get tough that will earn him respect in the Packers' locker room.
It's easy to soak in the adulation when things are going well, but when things are bad, you've got to take the hits for your team.
"Not good enough," Love said of his own play as of late.
Here's the thing, though. It's one thing to talk about it, and it's a completely different thing to actually take those mistakes and learn from them -- especially in the NFL.
Sure, Love is showing the emotional maturity of a franchise quarterback, but the Packers are in a Super Bowl window here. They need him to be more than just an emotional leader for this team.
They need him to go out there and win games when the chips are down. Win games when things aren't going well. Win games when the other team punches you in the mouth. Win games when your head coach is staring at his tablet and play-calling sheet like it's spitting out a foreign language at him.
The Packers need Love to be "the guy", and he just hasn't been over these past two weeks of football. It's easy to look good when the machine around you is humming, but the elite quarterbacks in the league find a way to win no matter what is happening around them.
It's a shame, too, because Love has all the talent in the world. He has more talent in his right pinky than most NFL quarterbacks have in their whole body.
He just hasn't been able to step up into adversity and face it head-on, though. Yes, a lot of that is on coaching, and Matt LaFleur is absolutely now on the hot seat.
A lot of it is on Love, though. The Packers are paying him $55 million a year to lead them not just in postgame quotes, but between the white lines.
He's right. He's not been good enough.