Jordan Love is the NFL’s passing leader. He threw for 288 yards and three touchdowns Thursday night as the Packers beat the Panthers 27-19 at Lambeau Field, and a fourth-down stop at midfield sealed it.
Love came into the night 31 yards behind Matthew Stafford. He was past him before halftime. He now has 2,246 passing yards this season, 257 more than Stafford’s 1,989, with 16 touchdown passes.
How it happened
Green Bay led 20-10 at the half after Love hit Tucker Kraft for 12 yards and Matthew Golden for 24, with a Josh Jacobs 1-yard run in between. Jacobs caught a 4-yard touchdown in the third quarter to make it 27-10.
Then the Packers stopped scoring, and Carolina hung around. Bryce Young found Jalen Coker for a 26-yard touchdown with 5:37 left, but the two-point try failed and it stayed 27-19.
Here’s the play that decided it: Carolina got the ball back at its own 45 with 4:35 to go and went nowhere. On fourth-and-5 at midfield, Young’s pass for Tetairoa McMillan fell incomplete with 2:46 left. The Panthers’ last-gasp lateral play on the final snap ended in a fumble recovered by Brenton Cox Jr.
The numbers
- Jordan Love: 30 of 41, 288 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT
- Christian Watson: 8 catches, 113 yards
- Bryce Young: 23 of 41, 209 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT
- Chuba Hubbard: 22 carries, 81 yards, 1 TD
My take
Green Bay is 5-3 and Carolina falls to 3-4. The Packers didn’t score in the last 22 minutes, and that should bug them. But Love carried an offense that couldn’t run it: Jacobs had 39 yards on 21 carries.
I said this afternoon that Love would take the lead tonight and Jared Goff would be holding it at Thanksgiving. Half of that already came true. Goff is at 1,788 through six games. Stafford gets his shot back Sunday. Enjoy the view, Jordan. It might be a rental.
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Jeremy Durham is a sports columnist for TriStar Daily and the founder of Five and a Fade.
