Jordan Love's Inconsistency Makes Packers Unpredictable

Our Kansas City Chiefs will be fighting to keep their hopes of a playoff bye week healthy tonight in Green Bay. The 5-6 Packers will be fighting to keep all their playoff hopes alive. Perhaps an early 14-point deficit to the lowly Raiders was the "come to Jesus" moment the Chiefs offense needed. Perhaps it was Rashee Rice's breakout performance that made KC's offense look legit again. We'll see today if that offense can keep it going against a Green Bay defense that is league-average in practically every relevant statistic.

The Packers offense is also average in practically every way, so predicting how much KC must score in order to overcome the Packers feels difficult. Green Bay's average of 21 points scored per game ranks 18th league-wide. Their passing yards per game rank 17th. Their total yards per game rank 19th. Jordan Love, whose QBR ranks 20th, is even more unpredictable than KC's offense.

Out of Love's 11 games played this season, he has finished five games with a QBR above 74 and five games with a QBR under 43. He just cooked the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, yet the Packers have lost to unimpressive opponents like the Raiders and Falcons. Love threw five touchdowns and no picks over his last two games. Maybe that's his turning point, or maybe this studly Chiefs defense will hand him a painful reality check. I'm predicting the latter.

KC has handled tougher opponents this season, and Love's inconsistency. The Packers also have a final injury report that takes longer to read than this article. On top of Aaron Jones missing another week, star cornerback Jaire Alexander and both of Green Bay's first-string safeties are listed as questionable. Even if they all play, it seems inevitable that those injuries will hamper that defense's ability to stop a (hopefully) resurgent Chiefs offense. I'll predict a relatively stress-free 31-20 victory for Kansas City.

Will Packers Present Problems to Chiefs in Anti-Vax Aaron's Absence?

Packers fans can thank the "immunized" Aaron Rodgers for giving the Kansas City Chiefs a major advantage today, but that's not the whole story. A flawed Chiefs team that eked out a win against the New York Giants last Monday must still face a Green Bay Packers defense that just limited Kyler Murray enough to hand an L to the previously undefeated Arizona Cardinals.

Green Bay ranks ninth or better league-wide in points allowed, total yards allowed and passing yards allowed per game. The Los Angeles Chargers and Buffalo Bills are the only teams the Chiefs have faced that rank higher than the Packers in passing defense. As you probably remember, both of those teams defeated Kansas City. That Packers defense will face off with a young QB with suddenly plummeting stock in the eyes of the sports media, as Patrick Mahomes is off to the worst start to a season that he's ever experienced.

His Adjusted QBR is a full 20 points lower than any season total in his career. He's one interception away from tying the combined total from his previous two seasons. He's still just a few moments away from shaking off this apprehension and getting back to being an all-time great, and I cannot be convinced otherwise. For now though, he has a lot of critics to prove wrong.

It's important (for me) to remember that Mahomes isn't the whole story every week. Kansas City's future at the linebacker position looks bright as Nick Bolton and Willie Gay are making strides in their development. That should be important when facing a Packers team focused on running the ball successfully and moving the chains with short passes, even when Rodgers is playing. The relationship between KC's alternative running backs and the new offensive line blocking for them also seems to be improving rapidly. Since Green Bay's secondary is one of the league's best, and their rushing defense is just average, KC could use this to their advantage today.

Should this be enough to help Kansas City get the job done this afternoon? I believe so. The Chiefs cannot lose this game when they're .500 and facing a quarterback in his first NFL start. Maybe Kansas City winds up being one of the best 4-4 teams ever, or maybe the flaws we've seen actually make them far closer to average than Chiefs Kingdom can currently accept. A victory for the Chiefs today still leaves us with a bunch of what-if questions, but a defeat at the hands of a backup quarterback would solidify many fears about Kansas City's many flaws.

The Chiefs are consistently losing to playoff-caliber football teams and beating below-average ones. Nobody knows with certainty what the identity of this Packers team will be with Jordan Love running the offense. He's a talented guy learning how to do his job from one of the best to ever do that job, so I expect him to play well, but he's not outplaying a motivated Mahomes today. I predict that we'll see a close game due to both Love's grooming and Kansas City's still-glaring flaws. The Chiefs should win - I'll go with 27-23 - and reclaim a winning record.