Green Bay fans watching Jordan Love shake out his right hand on the sideline Sunday had every reason to panic. The Packers had lost six straight games. Losing their quarterback at MetLife Stadium would have turned a bad stretch into a crisis.
Love finished the game, led the overtime drive, and then told everyone to calm down.
What Actually Happened
“Just took a hit. Went a little numb, but it’s good,” Love said in a postgame interview on the field.
In his press conference he clarified that the hit landed on his elbow, which caused the numbness that ran down into the throwing hand. That is a very different conversation than a fractured finger or a sprained wrist, and the 27-year-old never came off the field for it.
The Win Was Not Pretty
Green Bay beat the Jets 20-17 in overtime after trailing 17-7 in the fourth quarter. Trey Smack ended it with a 26-yard field goal.
Love went 16-of-29 for 145 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. MarShawn Lloyd caught a six-yard scoring pass for the first touchdown of his career, and Christian Watson hauled in a three-yard score.
The underlying numbers were awful, and there is no dressing them up. The Packers went 1-for-9 on third down and committed 14 accepted penalties. A team that plays like that usually loses by two touchdowns.
Six Games Is a Long Time
This is the part that gets lost in a Monday injury update. Green Bay had not won a football game in six tries. The losing streak carried over into this season and turned a Week 2 road trip to the Jets into something close to a must-win.
The Packers are 1-1. An 0-2 start with a six-game skid attached would have put every conversation about this roster, this coaching staff and this quarterback into a much darker place.
They won ugly. In September, after six losses, that is the only version that matters.
The Short Week Is the Real Problem
Green Bay returns Thursday night against Atlanta at Lambeau Field. That is three days of recovery for a quarterback whose throwing arm went numb.
Love has every incentive to downplay it, and everything he said Sunday suggests it is minor. Nerve-related numbness from a direct elbow hit usually resolves within a day or two. The concern is not the injury itself so much as how his arm responds to a Tuesday walkthrough and a Wednesday practice with no real rest in between.
There is another problem. Wide receiver Jayden Reed was carted off with a neck injury against the Jets, which thins out a pass-catching group that already needed Love playing at his best.
Where This Leaves Green Bay
Atlanta comes in at 0-2. If the Packers cannot beat a winless team at home on a short week, the six-game streak will start looking like the rule instead of the exception.
Love said his hand is fine. The rest of Green Bay’s problems, the third downs and the penalties and the health of the receiver room, are not going to be solved by a Thursday night against the Falcons. They do have to start somewhere.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.