NFL MVP Betting: Can Jordan Love Achieve the Unthinkable in His First Year as a Starter?

The Green Bay Packers are going to look a little different this year.  For the first time since 2007, someone other than Aaron Rodgers is going to be quarterbacking their team.

It’s been a very long time since Packers fans have had to worry about their starting quarterback. Some fans might not have even been worried when transitioning from Brett Favre, who had led their team since 1992 until Rodgers took over in 2008. Packers fans over the last 30 years have had it relatively easy in that regard.

However, in 2023, it will be former first-round pick Jordan Love handling quarterback duties in Green Bay. Love entered the league as the 26th overall pick while the Packers still had Rodgers as their starter. The move created friction between Rodgers and the organization, but the team went a combined 26-7 in their following 2 seasons while Rodgers took home back-to-back MVP awards.

Most fan bases usually start clamoring for their young quarterbacks – usually highly selected in the NFL draft – to take over for the incumbent veteran starter after a few weeks of tough losses. In the Packers’ case, Rodgers never gave fans of Love a reason to ask for him to step aside.

Rodgers’ MVP wins in 2020 and 2021 brought his career total up to 4 MVP wins. Favre himself won the award another 3 times during his long tenure as the Packers’ starter. Those legendary quarterbacks have more combined MVP wins than most franchises in the NFL do in their histories.

Now, the NFL MVP odds on the FanDuel Sportsbook give Jordan Love +3500 odds to continue in the footsteps of Favre and Rodgers and win the MVP award for the 2023 season. He’s a substantial underdog, sitting tied with Derek Carr for the 15th-best odds to win the award at the end of the season -- but does he actually stand a chance?

The Shape of an MVP-Winning Season

Most modern MVP winners have several things in common between their winning seasons. Since the expansion into 32 teams, MVP winners have almost all taken their teams to a first-place finish in their own divisions. 19 of those 22 winners led their teams to at least 12 victories in their winning seasons, and only Adrian Peterson’s 2012 Minnesota Vikings had fewer than 11 wins. The Associated Press voters seem to have some requirements in mind for their MVP candidates.

This does make some amount of sense. If someone can truly be called the “Most Valuable Player”, shouldn’t they be able to get their team a division title by winning at least 12 games? We have seen some insane quarterback performances in recent years get snubbed in MVP voting for their teams finishing with poor final records. Deshaun Watson led the league in passing yards in 2020 while competing against his own team’s terrible defense and didn’t get a vote for MVP. Russell Wilson scored 37 of the Seattle Seahawks’ 38 touchdowns in the 2017 season but couldn’t get any respect come voting time.

So basically, the “Most Valuable Player” award isn’t the most accurately-named award in the business. While only one player actually wins the award each season (or two in the case of a rare tie), it kind of takes a team to make an MVP.

The 2023 Packers

So with that in mind, can the Packers’ 2023 roster get Jordan Love onto MVP ballots by the end of the season?

They at least seem to have pretty good odds of winning their division. According to the NFL divisional betting odds market, no division is more closely contested than the NFC North. The Detroit Lions have the best odds to take home the title with +145 odds while the Vikings trail them at +270, the Packers come in at +350, and the Chicago Bears close the division out with +420 odds. The Packers are not favorites to win the division, but they’re right there in the thick of it with the rest of their rivals.  That could be a feather in the cap for Love this season; in a division rife with uncertainty, he’ll have a fair shake at leading his team to a title.

The teams the Packers will be competing against all share a commonality that could buoy Green Bay up to the top of the standings, too. The Bears, Vikings, and Lions all have abysmal defenses. Those teams, respectively, ranked first, third, and fourth in points allowed during the previous season, comprising three of the eight teams that allowed over 400 points to their opponents. The Packers’ defense allowed an average-looking 371 points, but even that middling finish was enough for them to be considered the best defense in the division.

Having a solid defensive foundation behind him is a benefit Love will have over his division-mates this season. The Vikings' defense arguably became worse with their offseason moves to reduce spending. The Lions will be banking on free agents like Chauncey Gardner-Johnson to patch things up while also hoping for Aidan Hutchinson to break out. Plus, to be as kind as possible, the Bears' defensive roster is a long way from a long way from being a good unit.

There’s only so much an offense can do to win a game. No matter how many points they put, they’ll still need their defense to prevent their opponents from scoring more. Jordan Love might be the only quarterback in his division that won’t have to worry about his defense dragging down his chances at an MVP bid.

Who is Jordan Love?

For an article about Jordan Love’s chances of winning an MVP award, we haven’t really talked about the man himself much at all. In Love’s case, that’s mostly because he’s a bit of an unknown. While he entered the league in 2020, the 2023 campaign will be the first time we’ll get an authentic, extended look at him.

We have seen bits and pieces of Love since he entered the league, though. He didn’t play in his rookie season while Rodgers put together an MVP season. Love did see the field a few times in his second year. He took over from Rodgers to finish out a couple of blowout games and saw significant action in two separate contests. In Week 9 of the 2021 NFL season, Love was forced into starting against the Kansas City Chiefs while Rodgers (COVID-19) was away from the team. The results weren’t pretty. The Chiefs' defense that year was not a strong unit, but Love was not able to take advantage of that fact. He completed 19 of his 34 (55.9%) attempts that game for 190 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception. He also took an 11-yard sack and committed a fumble that was recovered.

Love also made an extended appearance in the final week of that season, taking over for Rodgers at halftime. He took a sack and fumbled in his first dropback that game but did recover the fumble. He finished that appearance with 10 completions on 17 attempts, 134 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions (the second of which was on a Hail Mary attempt).

His early performances didn’t do much to instill confidence in Love’s abilities, but things did look better last year. He appeared in 3 separate games to close out blowouts, which he accomplished in a much prettier fashion than in the previous year. In Week 12, he took over for Rodgers in the final quarter of the game after the veteran suffered a rib injury. Facing the Philadelphia Eagles’ elite defense in a close game, Love completed 6 of his 9 pass attempts (66.6%) for 113 yards and a touchdown. The team lost that game against the future NFC winners, but Love was able to lead his own squad on two scoring drives against their defense.

There were encouraging signs of growth from Love last season, and there’s reason for optimism about his development heading into his first year as the starter. The 2023 offseason will be the first time Love has ever had the opportunity to lead the first-team offense as the starter. He’ll spend the summer developing chemistry with the team’s young core of pass-catchers.

The Packers’ 2023 Offense

Love won’t be the only unknown factor for the Packers’ offense this season. In fact, besides running backs Aaron Jones, A.J. Dillon, and the offensive line, we haven’t seen more than a year of play from any of their projected starters.

Christian Watson was a second-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft and lived up to expectations once he got up to speed. If not for a blown, would-be-long touchdown in the first game of the season, we might be even more excited about his potential this season. Watson has elite speed and flashed playmaking ability on his way to a 7-touchdown season.

Besides Watson, though, the team will be banking on some number of rookies and sophomores to make an impact. Romeo Doubs saw the field in his rookie season, posting over 400 yards as a part-time player. The team spent significant draft capital on a handful of pass-catchers in 2023, selecting wide receiver Jayden Reed and tight end Luke Musgrave in the second round followed by Tucker Kraft in the third.

This sets the Packers up to project as a run-first team in 2023 as their young offensive core develops together. If Jones and Dillon can keep the offense moving, the team won’t be relying on Love to make insane, Rodgers-esque plays to put points on the board. They’ll just want him to pass relatively efficiently while keeping negative plays to an absolute minimum.

Eliminating those negative plays was a critical component of Rodgers’ two most recent MVP-winning campaigns and could become Love’s best path to putting together an MVP bid himself. In Rodgers’ 2020 and 2021 seasons, he threw 9 interceptions, took 50 sacks, and committed just 7 fumbles.

To contextualize just how bonkers those seasons were, consider this: 19 quarterbacks threw more interceptions last year alone than Rodgers (9) threw in those seasons combined. Justin Fields and Russell Wilson each took more sacks in 2022 than Rodgers did (50) in those two combined seasons, and 11 quarterbacks exceeded Rodgers’ 7 combined fumbles in 2022 alone. He committed negative plays almost four times less often than an average quarterback during his MVP campaigns.

We don’t need Love to instantly become as elite at eliminating negative plays as Rodgers was at his best, but no player can put together an MVP bid while losing his team games through interceptions, sacks, and fumbles, so Love will need to avoid those costly plays in 2023.

Love's 2023 Outlook

Outside of the rookie quarterbacks, there is perhaps no MVP candidate with more unknowns heading into the 2023 season than Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love.

His +3500 MVP odds on the FanDuel Sportsbook rank him as the 15th-most likely candidate heading into the season. The former first-round pick has a lot to prove in his first season as the starter but will start his career in an organization that has fostered more MVP-winners than any other group in the league.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author’s advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.