Will Jordan Love and the Packers follow Aaron Rodgers’ Super Bowl path in Year 2?​on January 7, 2025 at 1:45 pm

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The locker room was mostly empty, except for Josh Jacobs and Xavier McKinney. It was their first news conference after signing as free agents with the Green Bay Packers last offseason.

Yet, from the moment Jacobs and McKinney stepped inside Lambeau Field, they could sense what had happened less than two months earlier. They felt the Packers’ last-minute playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC divisional round seeping from the walls.

But as disappointed as everyone in the organization was about the loss, there was a feeling a window had been opened to the future for the youngest team in the NFL, led by a rising star in quarterback Jordan Love.

“From day one, it’s been mentioned,” Jacobs said of the loss, shortly after he arrived in Green Bay. “Just between the guys, it’s been mentioned.”

In 2010, there was a similar mood among those who had just joined the Packers, months after the team lost an NFC wild-card game, 51-45 in overtime, to the Arizona Cardinals during quarterback Aaron Rodgers‘ maiden trip to the playoffs.

“You could tell it was a little bit of a driving factor going into it,” recalled Packers tackle Bryan Bulaga, who joined the team in 2010 as a rookie first-round pick. “It seemed like it was more of a driving factor that we could go further, and we know we can do more. I didn’t really know that, because I was a rookie, but you could tell other guys felt like this team had more.”

That 2010 team went on to win Super Bowl XLV. Can this Packers team follow the same path to a championship? The 2009-10 and 2023-24 Packers have much in common.

Both had a young quarterback heading to his second straight postseason. Both were wild-card teams that few on the outside considered a Super Bowl favorite. Both had young rosters. The 2010 team won a championship by going on the road for every playoff game. This year’s team, the No. 7 seed, begins its quest on the road against the second-seeded Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC wild-card round (4:30 p.m. ET, Fox).

“When you go through things like that — and a young team at that — you have those experiences and you go through the losing part of it. That helps you learn,” said McKinney, the safety who signed with the Packers during the offseason.

“It’s not necessarily that they lost, you’re learning from that situation. Next time when it pops up, you know how to handle it and you know how to go about it. …That added fuel to the fire. And just adding pieces — myself, Josh — to what they had already going on, I think really helps put it all together.”

Though the 2010 team went into the playoffs on a high note, having to win their last two games just to get into the postseason, this season’s team has limped in with back-to-back losses.

THE 51-45 OVERTIME loss to the Cardinals in the 2009 playoff opener stands as the highest-scoring postseason game in NFL history. It ended when Rodgers was hit by blitzing Cardinals cornerback Michael Adams and the ball popped right into the hands of linebacker Karlos Dansby, who walked it in for the game-winning touchdown.

“I think there were a lot of guys that still had some scar tissue from it,” Bulaga said. “How that game finished, it still rubbed them the wrong way.”

Rodgers & Co. would have to wait another year to play their second playoff game.

Love and the Packers played two playoff games last season. They opened the postseason by trouncing the Dallas Cowboys 48-32 in the wild-card round before the 49ers knocked them out 24-21 in the divisional round. San Francisco running back Christian McCaffrey scored the go-ahead touchdown with 1:07 to play, and the game ended seconds later when Love threw an interception.

“I did [watch that],” said Jacobs, who was a member of the Las Vegas Raiders at the time. “They should’ve won.”

Both the 2010 and current Packers teams featured rosters loaded with young players. Rodgers was in his third season as a starter. Love is in his second. The opening day roster of the 2010 team had an average age of 25.5 years, making it the fifth-youngest team in the league. This season’s Packers were the youngest in the NFL for the second straight season at 25.1.

But the 2010 team had a couple of veteran players who had been chasing a Super Bowl for years. Cornerback Charles Woodson was in his 13th NFL season, receiver Donald Driver in his 12th and offensive tackle Chad Clifton in his 11th. The 2010 team also was riddled with injuries throughout the season, leaving 15 players on injured reserve by the time it reached the Super Bowl.

This season’s team has only two players age 30 or older. One of them — kicker Brandon McManus — already won a Super Bowl title with the Denver Broncos.

“There was more veteran leadership back in 2010 than what we see right now,” said Bulaga, who still follows the team closely as a radio analyst for ESPN Wisconsin. “But the thing that sticks out to me the most is that they still were young rosters — not just myself, but there were a lot of injuries that happened in 2010 that forced a lot of young guys into action.

“Not that injuries have forced [the 2024] team to play young guys. It’s just a young team, and these guys have a lot of experience from the prior year, which is going to help them going into these playoffs.”

Though the 2010 team needed to win its final two regular-season games to make the playoffs, this team wrapped up its playoff berth on Christmas Day.

The 2010 team also proved its mettle in the regular season against teams it would face in the postseason. It opened the season with a road win over Philadelphia, the same team it would beat in the wild-card round to start the postseason. It beat the Chicago Bears, the team it would face in the NFC Championship Game. And it lost on a last-second field goal at the Atlanta Falcons, the team it would meet in the divisional round.

“The old saying [goes], winning becomes a habit, just like losing can become a habit,” said quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, the only member of the current staff who was with the Packers for 2009-10. “So if you’re winning near the end of the year, you feel like you’re trending in the right direction, and then you get into the playoffs, and then you give your best shot.”

The 2024 squad opened the season with a loss to the Eagles and went winless in four games against NFC North-leaders Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings. Their only win over an NFC playoff qualifier came against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 5, when the Rams were depleted by injuries on the way to a 1-4 start.

“It’s not about who we can and can’t beat,” Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon said. “We can beat everybody. If we figure out how to finish, we’ll win games.

“It’s playoff time now. It’s win or go home. So either we figure out how to finish or we go back to the crib.”

OFTEN IN THE playoffs, it comes down to the quarterback. And the edge usually goes to the one with some playoff experience. Not since Tom Brady in 2001 has a quarterback won a Super Bowl in his first season as the full-time starter.

It took Rodgers a while to settle in during his first playoff start. His first throw of the 2009 loss to the Cardinals was intercepted. Two plays into the Packers’ next possession, Driver lost a fumble and the Packers were quickly down 14-0. And it was Rodgers’ fumble in overtime that clinched it.

Love’s first foray into the playoffs went much more smoothly. The Packers started fast, and Love finished with three touchdowns and no interceptions in the win over the Cowboys. But it was Love’s last-minute interception that ended his initial postseason run in the divisional round against the 49ers.

“It didn’t work out, but it can only help everyone who was a young player at that time to experience what it’s like in the playoffs, and then to experience what it’s like to lose in the playoffs, because you remember that,” said Clements, when asked how Love could benefit from his first postseason experience. “It’s a lot more fun to win than lose, and I think everyone remembers that.”

Even those who weren’t part of it last year, such as Jacobs and McKinney, feel it.

“Those guys are veteran players,” Bulaga said. “So that’s something where they can read a room really well.”