Jordan Love is leading the entire league in passing yards right now, a stat that feels like a gut punch if you’ve been following the Green Bay Packers. For years, we’ve heard about the slow pace of their offense, how it limits Love’s raw counting stats, and how we should all be focused on efficiency metrics like EPA per play. Now, out of nowhere, he’s piled up the most passing yards, and attempts, across the NFL. It’s wild, but is it good? The numbers tell a story that’s a bit more complicated than just seeing him at the top of the leaderboards.
Volume Up, Efficiency Down: The Love Conundrum
Yeah, Love is airing it out like never before, leading the league in both passing yards and attempts. We’ve all wanted to see him unleashed, to “let Jordan cook,” but this season it’s coming with a significant trade-off. His EPA per play has plummeted to .15, a huge drop from last year’s .289. While .15 is still more efficient than an average quarterback, that kind of dip is concerning. The offense might still be working, but it’s nowhere near the peak efficiency we saw from him previously. A huge factor in this high volume and lower efficiency? The Packers’ running game, which the experts are calling “trash.” When you can’t run the ball, the passing game has to carry everything, and that extra pressure can make even a good QB look less efficient.
Drake Maye: The Quietly Great Contender
Across the league, Drake Maye, now in his third season with the Patriots, is also navigating a shifting landscape. Last year, Maye was probably the best quarterback in football, leading everyone in EPA per play at .322 and ranking first in NextGenStats’ CPOE, which is considered the gold standard. He wasn’t a volume passer then, ranking 12th in attempts with 492, which was just slightly ahead of Love’s 439 attempts (Love missed two games, so per game they were neck and neck). This season, Maye’s still showing up as a top-tier QB, sitting third among active starters in EPA per play at .279. That’s a drop from last year, but still really strong. What’s wild is his volume has also fallen, placing him 17th in pass attempts this season. His CPOE has taken a hit too, down over 50% and now seventh in the league. Maye might be having an objectively better season than Love from an individual player perspective, according to the numbers that truly matter.
Who’s More Valuable? It Depends On How You Look At It
This is where it gets interesting, because while Maye’s individual metrics seem stronger, Love has almost certainly been the more valuable player for his team this season. Why? Volume. When a quarterback is forced to throw as much as Love has due to a terrible running game, and still keeps the offense functional, that volume creates immense value. The Patriots, for all their faults, have a running game that “doesn’t suck as much” as Green Bay’s. Now, let’s be clear, both running games do, in fact, suck. The Patriots have run the ball 240 times for a 4.1 YPC average, but that number is boosted by Drake Maye’s own scrambles. Their top two running backs, TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stephenson, haven’t been enough to relieve the pressure on Maye significantly. It’s a tale of two quarterbacks: one showing elite individual efficiency with lower volume, and another shouldering an incredible load, driving up his raw stats, but at a cost to his individual efficiency.
What this all means going forward for both the Packers and Patriots is huge. Can Love maintain his value if his efficiency continues to slide? Can Maye elevate his team’s performance with declining volume? Both quarterbacks are facing different challenges, and it’s going to be a fascinating ride to see how they adapt as the season unfolds.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Acme Packing Company.
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