Packers GM Brian Gutekunst hints at long-term extension for his hand-picked quarterback
2023 season, it’s instructive to juxtapose what general manager Brian Gutekunst said during his after-the-season Q&A session with reporters on Thursday — and what he’d said the last time he’d stood at the Lambeau Field media auditorium podium three months prior to the day.
Back then, on Nov. 1, his Packers were sitting at 2-5, struggling mightily after four consecutive losses and facing an uncertain 10-game future.
At the time, there was no concrete evidence Gutekunst’s hand-picked quarterback of the future, 2020 first-round draft pick Jordan Love, was going to prove his mettle as the next man up in the franchise’s royal lineage at the game’s most important position.
The young wide receivers and tight ends were experiencing the anticipated ups and downs that inexperienced NFL players so frequently endure, and there was reason to wonder if Gutekunst’s blueprint — designed for Love and those would-be pass catchers to experience their growing pains together and come out on the other side better together for it — was going to work.
And, there was no guarantee that the youngest roster in the NFL could pull itself out of its losing streak/tailspin.
“We’ve got 10 games left. These are going to be a very important 10 games,” Gutekunst said then.
“I think (Love) has done a lot of really good things. (I) really like the way he’s responded to the adversity, how he’s led the team. Again, we’ve got to be better as a unit — and I expect that to happen over the next 10 games.
“We’re going through some things that we knew we would go through. We haven’t had the results that we want, but I do like the way guys are responding.”
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Gutekunst proved prescient that day, of course. The Packers won seven of those 10 games, Love went on an Aaron Rodgers-esque hot streak — he completed 212 for 300 passes (70.7%) for 2,422 yards with 21 touchdowns and one interception for a 116.6 passer rating in the nine games leading into the team’s 24-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC divisional playoffs — and those inexperienced wideouts and tight ends played like seasoned vets down the stretch.
No wonder Gutekunst was talking in vastly different — and far more definitive — terms on Thursday.
