Jordan Love Goes Full Brett Favre and Keeps Kyle Shanahan Away from Kirk Cousins

By Eric Strack |

Updated: Jan 21, 2024

NFL: NFC Divisional Round-Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers — Credit: Dan Powers-USA TODAY Sports

Sometimes, you just cannot make up the storylines that happen in the sports world and that was absolutely the case on Saturday night when the Green Bay Packers played the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Divisional Round.

All game long, Love looked like the next coming of Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers, probably a combination of the two. All Minnesota Vikings fans could do was look on and wonder what the next decade is going to be like if that really does come to fruition.

Jordan Love ain't real
pic.twitter.com/99puEk9Djn
— Eli Berkovits (@BookOfEli_NFL) January 21, 2024

Kyle Shanahan wishing he had Kirk Cousins instead of Brock Purdy tonight

Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers were riding the struggle bus offensively all game long and the problem was clear. It was Brock Purdy. He couldn’t hang onto the football or hit wide open receivers.

And it didn’t matter how many YPC Christian McCaffrey was averaging, Kyle Shanahan is who he is… and that’s a pass-happy play-caller, just like everyone who has fallen from the Shanahan tree, including Vikings head coach, Kevin O’Connell.

Name your Shanahan disciple, McVay, Shanahan, O’Connell… they all love to call passing plays, no matter how well their running backs are playing. And on Saturday night, Brock Purdy was not good enough to operate that type of offense.

Brock Purdy facing his first adversity in WEEKS pic.twitter.com/KFzOyVRPSl
— IKE Packers Podcast (@IKE_Packers) January 21, 2024

Which brings us back to the Minnesota Vikings, who are getting ready to sit down at the negotiating table with their quarterback since 2018, Kirk Cousins. In case you haven’t heard, there’s one head coach in the NFL who might like Kirk more than KOC and his name rhymes with Smile Kanahan.

He coaches the same 49ers team whose quarterback nearly lost them another playoff game Saturday night. For a lot of this game, it sure felt like San Francisco’s season was going to be over and that they’d be on the hunt for a QB who could get them over the hump. A QB like Kirk Cousins.

Jordan Love goes full Brett Favre…

But then, the unpredictable world of sports took over and some weird shit happened. That’s why we love sports, right? The 49ers drove down and finally took the lead, late in the 4th quarter with just 1:06 remaining in the game. It felt like the moment Jordan Love would be knighted as the next great NFL quarterback.

Everything leading up to the Packers last drive would have made any right-minded fan feel that way. Instead, Love went full 2009-10 NFC Championship Game Brett Favre across the body, “It can’t end like this” and threw a game-sealing interception that ended Green Bay’s season and kept Mike Shanahan and the 49ers away from Kirk Cousins for at least one more week.

It’s crazy how similar these throws are. I’m getting PTSD from it. pic.twitter.com/qvXkI2LxbF
— 10,000 Takes (@10k_Takes) January 21, 2024

So instead of worrying about the San Francisco 49ers coming for Kirk Cousins, we can celebrate Jordan Love not yet being what Green Bay Packers fans thought he was. Sports have a funny way of surprising you like that.