Kansas City – Matt LaFleur might have imagined his 42nd birthday differently.

A few congratulations at the press conference here, a sentence about Sunday’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday from 10:25 p.m., that they are a good football team, that you shouldn’t underestimate them despite their 4-4 record. Something like that.

That the head coach of the Green Bay Packers then had to face such a bombshell news from the press late in the morning – namely that Aaron Rodgers had tested positive for Corona – was certainly not something he had expected.

For LaFleur, the star quarterback’s absence for the top game at the top team the past two years means his team will be without its preseason MVP and an outstanding conductor of the offense with the exception of the first game of the season.

“They’re not going to postpone or cancel the game for us,” LaFleur said at the press conference, somewhat annoyed. That’s the way it is, you have to face it. Now it’s the “next man up” mentality that counts.

6:21 minutes NFL experience instead of three-time MVP

Instead of putting his offensive efforts in Rodgers’ hands, LaFleur is putting or will have to put his offensive efforts in the hands of a quarterback who has been on an NFL field for 6:21 minutes during a regular-season game, Jordan Love.

Result of that effort at the 3:38 mark with 10:46 left in the final quarter on Game 1 of the season against the New Orleans Saints in Jacksonville: five of seven passing, 68 yards, one fumble for a quarterback rating of 102.1.

Including a fine pass to Randall Cobb for 32 yards. What former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current TV pundit Troy Aikman noticed about the few snaps: “He’s creating some time in the pocket.”

A good sign. Passes of ten to 20 yards already showed some accuracy in the preseason, and the in-and-outs promised positives.

Poisoned climate at Packers over Love

At the beginning, Jordan Love was anything but a love story in Green Bay.

Rather, the selection of the quarterback from Utah State in the 2020 draft caused plenty of discussion and seemed to poison the club climate, especially between Rodgers and the Packers leadership.

Love symbolises everything general manager Brian Gutekunst has done wrong in Rodgers’ eyes. Lack of support through invested early draft picks in the offense.

That a first-round pick – and one traded up four spots to boot – is then invested in his successor – a punch in the gut for Rodgers.

Love not even used as backup

And Love’s choice remained a mystery to pundits and journalists after his rookie season – largely because of LaFleur’s handling of his rookie during playing time.

For example, the rookie never found himself on the Packers’ 46-man roster. Before games, it was always Love inactive.

With no preseason games and few opportunities to watch the Packers’ practices because of Corona, Love never got a chance to show his stuff.

Questions about Love’s abilities, therefore, quickly arose. “Is he maybe even so bad that the Packers want to hide him?” was the line on Hoge & Jahn’s podcast of “The Athletic. ”

Solid outings in preseason

This preseason, Love disproved those speculations and showed what he has in his right throwing arm in his outings. While it wasn’t the dominance Packers fans expected or hoped for either, he did flash approaches and was especially reminiscent of his sophomore year in college.

With 32 touchdowns to just six interceptions for 3567 yards, he set a college season record in the Mormon State and had draft analysts raving about a future first-round pick.

The experts attributed the drop-off in his junior season, with 20 touchdowns to 17 interceptions, to the departure of numerous starters from his college team.

Mahomes vs Rodgers won’t be a love story

Now the quarterback, who turned 23 on Tuesday, awaits his starter’s debut against the Chiefs – a game football fans had been eagerly anticipating.

It was supposed to be the big spectacle, the duel between Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes, after it was cancelled two years ago due to an injury to Mahomes. The duel MVP 2020 against MVP 2018.

Even Mahomes revealed in the ran interview how he is looking forward to the clash with Rodgers.

“When you play against a great quarterback like Aaron, it’s a particularly cool thing,” he said. After all, he had watched Rodgers closely for years.

“I watched a lot of his games when I was younger, just because I thought I could play a similar style to him,” Mahomes explained: “The way he moves, the way he throws the ball in different ways. And now to be able to play against him for the first time, I’m really looking forward to that opportunity. ”

This will now be denied to Mahomes once again. The duel between Mahomes and Rodgers will no longer be a love story.

But love stories are nothing for the cool LaFleur anyway: “Nobody wants such great players like Aaron to drop out. But we have to go through that now. Every single one has to give his best. Jordan too.”

And maybe a new love story will begin on Sunday at 15:25 local time.