In The Highly Anticipated SNF Clash With His Mentor Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love Played One Of The Best Games Of His Career...Also Is It Crazy To Say Tucker Kraft Is The Best Tight End In Football?

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This was a night I looked forward to all year —a Love-Rodgers matchup under the lights in Pittsburgh. Rodgers, a dude I spent two decades of my life drooling over, was now on the opposition. Weird. I still root for the guy now that he's off the Jets (I could not let my friends who root for them achieve any happiness). Sue me, but I'm ecstatic he still has some good football in that right arm now that he's on a competent team again. 

This was different than Favre playing the Packers for the first time. The only person he really hates still is Gutekunst, but as far as his relationship with Love? I'll always appreciate how well he treated him, even when it was clear Love was there to replace 12. Aaron simply didn't want to make the same mistakes that Favre did. It wasn't the cleanest of exits obviously, but I think going into this game it was viewed as more fun than revenge. How would it play out? 

Well, for the first 30 minutes of Sunday Night Football's Packers-Steelers clash, Green Bay kept shooting themselves in the foot all over the field. Play-calling, run blocking, WR drops, missed kicks, whatever Keisean Nixon was trying to do, you name it. Love was playing well, but it didn't matter because everyone outside of Tucker Kraft wasn't helping the cause. They went into halftime trailing 16-7 with the Steelers getting the ball to start the 3rd quarter. Not great!

The three and out that the Packers defense forced to start the 2nd half set the tone for everything to follow. By that I mean the Jordan Love and Tucker Kraft show. 

Tucker Kraft decided to make National Tight Ends Day all about him. Dude led the league in receiving yards today. 

Is it crazy to say he's the best tight end in the game right now? 

I don't think so. 

As for Love? I don't believe he could have played much better. On the road in Pittsburgh against his mentor and he goes 29/37 360 yards 3 TDs 0 INT. At one point he connected on 20 consecutive completions. Keep in mind he got held back in the first half with three drops and some terrible play-calling from LaFleur. Love was great and even if Pittsburgh's defense is that bad, it was still a great game from him. He made zero mistakes. Even the misses were great throws. One of the performances of his career. The pressure of playing against Rodgers on the road? Didn't seem to phase him in the slightest. That was an elite 60 minutes of quarterbacking. Love has been really good this season, yet no one seems to want to give him credit for it outside of Packers fans. I guess they're just furious that this organization really does appear to have done it again with finding a franchise QB just like that.

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Quick rant on LaFleur. I know you gotta get the run game going to keep defenses honest, but sometimes it feels like MLF just runs it to say he did. They run it after a 1st down incompletion more than just about anybody and it makes my blood boil. LaFleur also had Doubs running go balls when Golden and Watson were at his disposal. The usage of Golden so far continues to make my head hurt. Love was torching the old Steelers defense and only had seven points to show for it through 30 minutes. Thankfully they got more aggressive in the 2nd half and points flooded the scoreboard. While I did just trash the run game, Emanuel Wilson was a nice breath of fresh air in there with Jacobs unable to get going all night. His effectiveness in the 2nd half really contributed to their success. I know I just contradicted myself by complimenting the run, but they still get too cute with it when you have this high powered deep ball passing game that works better than a large majority of teams in the league. 

Lean on your strengths and let Love chuck it. 

The defense really stepped up in the 2nd half with the pash rush breaking through. Parsons got triple teamed here and it didn't matter. Guy is a game breaking freak. 

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And when Parsons doesn't get home, he's drawing attention elsewhere which allows guys like Rashan Gary to destroy a play. 

I will say, some of the officiating tonight was bizarre. How this offsides wasn't called was insane. 

It was almost like every ref assumed someone else was going to throw a flag here. They even huddled up because they knew they fucked up so bad, but couldn't find it in themselves to fix their mistake. 

On the flip side, how was this not a false start? 

Dumbfounding is the best way to describe it. If not for replay assist a late obvious Roman Wilson touchdown wouldn't have counted either. Crazy bad calls all night, but what's new? 

Anyways, that second half of Packers football was phenomenal. Shows you the team's true potential. The first half? Forgettable without question. Green Bay may not look like a dominant Super Bowl contender at all times, but 5-1-1 is a record teams would kill for. They have talent all over the field and got a fun weapon back tonight in Christian Watson who not only stretches the field with elite speed, but also blocks with the best of them. They get a layup at home next week against Carolina before MNF with the Eagles. Keep it rolling, stay healthy, get Tucker Kraft the ball and let Love cook. Good things will happen if you do those things. 

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P.S. Was this the worst full Sunday of football in recent memory?