The Green Bay Packers offense is one of the NFL’s biggest mysteries entering the 2023 season. Will they be better in 2023 with Jordan Love than they were in 2022 under Aaron Rodgers? Will Love be the quarterback the Packers envisioned he could be when they traded up to draft him in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft?
Of course, these questions cannot be answered until the regular season. Packers CEO and President Mark Murphy stated that they will know after about eight games if Love is who they think he is. He based his timeline on when they knew what they had in Rodgers after he took over as the starter in 2008.
Despite not being able to know anything for certain, there are certainly many who have high hopes for Love and the offense. One of these is former Packers quarterback Kurt Benkert, who shared on Twitter (or X now, I guess) what he thinks the team can achieve this season.
Kurt Benkert Has High Hopes for Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers Offense
Benkert, of course, spent the 2021 season with the Packers, primarily on the practice squad. He has great insight into Love’s talent and abilities, as well as how the offense in Green Bay runs. Due to this expertise, he is more qualified to predict the quality of their play than most, and his hopes for this team are high:
I hope Jordan Love throws for 4k yards, both Doubs & Watson have 1k receiving each – AND Jones & Dillon go for 1k all-purpose each.
It’s actually possible this year.
— Kurt Benkert (@KurtBenkert) July 31, 2023
Benkert’s prediction is completely possible, and he then laid out how it could happen:
Really think about it –
235 yds passing a game
60 yds by each receivers a game
60 yards TOTAL between both backs a game.If all 5 stay healthy this can happen. Will take all 17 games.
Jones and Watson are locks imo. Doubs will have to have the dirty yards / breakout games.
— Kurt Benkert (@KurtBenkert) July 31, 2023
It all sounds very logical, but let’s also take a look at some historical numbers to support these predictions:
- In 2022, nine NFL quarterbacks threw for 4,000+ yards; Aaron Rodgers was not one of them. If Love truly has a better season than Rodgers did last year (which he played with a broken thumb), 4,000 yards is not out of the question at all.
- In his first year as a starter, Rodgers threw for 4,038 yards.
- In 2019, the first year Matt LaFleur took over as head coach and installed his offense, Rodgers threw for 4,002 yards (in what many call a “down year” for the future Hall of Famer).
- Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon both had over 1,000 all-purpose yards in 2021, and Dillon was just 24 yards shy of the mark in 2022.
That two 1,000-yard wide receivers prediction is a very interesting one, perhaps the most interesting and hardest one to get right.
- The last time the Packers were close to having two 1,000-yard receivers was 2016; Jordy Nelson had 1,200+ and Davante Adams had 997.
- 2014 was the last time Green Bay had two 1,000+ yard receivers; Nelson had 1,519 and Randall Cobb had 1,287. The Packers, as many remember, made it all the way to the NFC Championship game.
In that 2014 season, Rodgers threw for over 4,300 yards, they had two 1,000-yard pass catchers, and Eddie Lacy had over 1,000 all-purpose yards. If Benkert’s predictions for Love and the rest of the offense come to fruition, the 2023 Packers offense would arguably be better than the 2014 offense, which many consider to be one of the best in team history.
And it could happen; the question is will it? If everyone stays healthy and plays to their potential, it will.
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