By Tori Wittenbrock
Associate Sports Editor
PITTSBURGH – After a 23-19 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, Nov. 12, quarterback Jordan Love is adamant that the team needs to make more plays during the course of the game, to avoid the pressure that has come with the final play in so many of their games this season.
In a game that came down to the wire, with the Packers retaining a 19-17 lead in the third quarter, the offense felt a lot of pressure taking the field for the final drive of the game, needing to score a touchdown to win. Ultimately finding themselves 16 yards out of the end zone on a fourth down with three seconds on the clock, Love was prompted to hurl the ball into the endzone hopeful for a game-winning reception. Yet, the game ended tragically when it was intercepted by the Steelers defense that overloaded the scoring territory.
“It’s very frustrating. We’ve been put in this situation lots of times, and we have not found a way to win it. So it is frustrating, but we’ve just got to find a way and dig deeper,” said Love.
The Packers have lost games to the Atlanta Falcons, the Las Vegas Raiders and the Denver Broncos by margins of four points or less. Green Bay also won their game against the New Orleans Saints on Sept. 24 with a nail-biting fourth quarter comeback.
“It comes down to so many different plays throughout the course of the game. We need to execute better and take advantage of those situations and then I don’t even think we’ll put ourselves in those situations at the end of the game.”
Though the Packers have been notorious in the past under the Aaron Rodgers era for their stellar comebacks, this season the team has a fresh set of starters, both on offense and defense, and Love said that they are working on finding a way to execute early on to avoid the panic at the end of the game.
“Offensively we started faster than we have in some of the previous games, so that was a positive, but there are definitely a lot of plays we left out there,” said Love about the progress that he was able to make with his team in their most recent games.
Love will lead the Packers into their next game at home on Sunday, Nov. 19, against the Los Angeles Chargers, hopeful to see some improvements and success early on in the match up.