The Green Bay Packers officially have the youngest roster across the NFL entering this season.
When you think of the Green Bay Packers, you should think about All the Young Dudes that they have.
No, this ain't no Mott the Hoople, and David Bowie ain't walkin' through that door. However, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst actually seems to have built a fairly competitive roster that can contend in a very winnable division. So what's Jordan Love got to do (got to do) with it? Absolutely everything! If he and the rest of this young corps can ball out, then we have ourselves a playoff team.
But was it Gutekunst's intention though to have the youngest roster in football? No, but he likes it!
Green Bay may finish in third place in the NFC North, but the Packers are not that far away from catching the downward-trending Minnesota Vikings, or the surprisingly surging Detroit Lions either.
So is this youth movement of sorts exactly what the Packers need or will it bite them in the ass hard?
Green Bay Packers' youth movement could go either way for franchise
For better or worse, this is what the Packers have signed up for. Well, maybe not their fans, but these are the type of shenanigans you can expect when you do not have a tangible owner to blame. It allows career front-office executives like Gutekunst to part ways with the most talented player he would ever hope to collaborate with in Aaron Rodgers perhaps a few seasons before he was truly ready to retire.
While I remain incredibly skeptical in Gutekunst's team-building processes, I do like the Packers head coach in Matt LaFleur. He stems from the Shanahan tree, which means he has a proclivity for using the run to open up the pass. This is utterly fantastic for Love's development, now in year four out of Utah State, ahead of his first season as the starter. A reliable run game makes things easier for Love.
Frankly, having the NFL's youngest team might play better into what LaFleur wants to do philosophically on both sides of the ball. Rodgers is and was a gifted playmaker, but he was far too much of an ad-libber to really get the most out of LaFleur's ground-centric system. It did help him win his two most recent NFL MVPs, but it did not result in a trip to the Super Bowl either. It did feel empty.
Overall, this team needs to have success before Halloween to even give them a chance. If a young team doesn't know it's bad yet, then maybe it won't be. But if it should become readily apparent how badly the 2023 Packers suck with Love as their quarterback, oh, this team could be putrid. This is why Green Bay offers such great variance this season. The Packers could win 11 games, or they could win
five games...
No matter how it ends, this will be Love's season to prove to everyone if he is a franchise quarterback.