NFL players collectively believe that Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is the 72nd-best player in the business. Most take any consideration inside the Top 100 as a token of respect, but that’s just not the case in PackerLand.
Various forms of Packers-themed media and Love’s teammate, Micah Parsons, took issue with the “low” ranking this week.
NFL Players: Love Ranks 72nd
It’s No. 72 for Love, as NFL.com counts down the league’s best players based on annual polling. Mike Spofford did the honors: “Packers quarterback Jordan Love has made the NFL’s “Top 100 Players” for a third straight year, coming in at No. 72. Love was ranked No. 68 a year ago and No. 34 in 2024 on the list that’s voted on by the players themselves.”
“Last season, Love set career highs in completion percentage (66.3) and passer rating (101.2) while throwing his fewest interceptions in a season (six) since taking over as Green Bay’s starting quarterback. He’s one of only three QBs in the league with 80-plus TD passes and fewer than 30 INTs since 2023, joining Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and the L.A. Rams’ Matthew Stafford.”
Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers checked in one spot ahead of Love at No. 71. Micah Parsons: Naw
Parsons, who posts on Twitter (X) a few times per month — usually a complaint about something — rushed to Love’s defense, tweeting, “71 players in the NFL aren’t better than Jordan Love!”
Love and Parsons have been teammates for just under a year, and Love has evidently earned his respect in that short period. Parsons is battling back from a torn ACL and isn’t expected to play right away in 2026 — he’ll be gone for the Vikings-Packers Week 1 showdown — but the tweet illustrated that Love is “his guy.”
The Packers passer ranked second in the NFL last year per EPA+CPOE, only bested by Drake Maye of the New England Patriots, and Packers fans absolutely insist that Love is the real deal, an argument that Parsons clearly supports.
Perhaps Love’s “problem” among onlookers and Madden in particular is that he isn’t quite as dominant as his two predecessors, Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre. The standard is high in Green Bay.
A Similar Response from Packers Media The Love conundrum isn’t exclusive to Parsons’s beef.
DairyLandExpress‘s Dylan Carter wrote Friday, “One healthy season. That’s what it will take for Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love to prove he is who the entire state of Wisconsin thinks he is.”
“One season uninterrupted by injuries to him and his most vital weapons would make Love one of the most obvious risers in the entirety of the NFL at just 27 years old. Love was just announced as one of the players on the NFL Top 100 list for 2026, which marks the second year in a row he has made the cut.”
For now, Love is a victim of popular thinking: he hasn’t traveled deep into the playoffs and therefore isn’t all that great.
“However, Love’s ranking took a slight dip from 68th last year to 72nd in 2026 — a similar result to that of his star running back, Josh Jacobs, who plummeted from the 30s into the late-70s,” Carter continued.
“While there is a strong argument to be made that Jordan Love is slightly underrated by these rankings, there’s an even better case that 2026 is the year he breaks through the noise and finally shows who he really is by breaking into the MVP conversation with his play.”
Lamar Jackson Shaded, Too If you think Love’s tumble from 68th to 72nd per the NFL Top 100 in a year was noteworthy, wait until you get a load of Lamar Jackson.
Jackson checked in as the league’s second-best overall player at this time last year. In July 2026, his peers ranked him No. 67 — an astounding 65-spot dip. NFL.com’s Bobby Kownack opined, “It was a trying season for the two-time AP NFL Most Valuable Player. He missed three games early due to a hamstring injury and another contest late with a back contusion, and in between didn’t move much like himself.”
“Jackson nonetheless finished the year fourth in passer rating (103.8), higher than seven Pro Bowl or Pro Bowl alternate quarterbacks. Now he hits the reset button under new head coach Jesse Minter with bouncing back in mind. The last time he fell this low in the Top 100 — No. 72 on the 2023 list — Jackson went on to earn two straight No. 2 spots.”
Jackson’s 65-spot plunge made Love’s look like child’s play.
Love and the Packers are favored to beat the Vikings by a point or two in Week 1.
Dustin Baker is a novelist and political scientist. His second novel, The Invaders , is out now. So is … More about Dustin Baker
Green Bay Believes No. 72 Undersells Love’s Ceiling
