GREEN BAY, Wis. — It took less than 24 hours for the Green Bay Packers quarterback of the future to connect with the quarterback of the present.
Jordan Love, the Green Bay Packers’ first-round pick in the NFL draft, told ESPN’s Maria Taylor Friday night that he and Aaron Rodgers had a good first interaction.
“Yeah, I was able to talk with him earlier,” Love said. “You know, really good guy. [He was] just congratulating me, and I was just letting him know that I was excited to be able to work with him.”
A source said Rodgers initiated the conversation.
Love, the 26th pick in the draft after the Packers traded up to take him, is viewed as the eventual replacement for Rodgers, although general manager Brian Gutekunst initially said touting him as the future franchise quarterback is “probably not fair, I don’t think you can put that on him right now.”
Rodgers has yet to comment publicly on the Packers’ decision to draft a quarterback in the first round just months after they completed a 13-3 season that ended one game short of the Super Bowl and during an offseason in which many felt the Packers would get Rodgers a weapon or two — specifically a receiver — early in the draft. The Packers picked Boston College running back AJ Dillon in the second round, but that could be as an eventual replacement for Aaron Jones, who’s heading into the last year of his contract.
Some took Rodgers’ silence on social media as a statement on his feelings about the pick, but a perusal of Rodgers’ social media accounts from the last two years showed no posts about previous draft picks, either.
Love told Taylor that he plans to study Rodgers closely.
“It’s a lot of things to be able to learn,” he said. “I’m just gonna take it step by step. Um, just trying to get behind him, learn everything he’s doing, and understand the process.”
