GREEN BAY — When Jordan Love looks at his stat line — or, more accurately, when someone brings up the Green Bay Packers quarterback’s stat line, as happened at midweek—he sees good numbers that show meaningful improvement and productivity.

Heading into Sunday’s matchup between the Packers (2-1-1) and the Cincinnati Bengals (2-3) at Lambeau Field, Love has completed 69.4% of his passes for 1,000 yards with eight touchdowns and one interception through four games. His 113.0 passer rating ranks fourth in the NFL, behind Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, Detroit’s Jared Goff and Seattle’s Sam Darnold.

And yet, especially as the Packers have gone winless in their past two games against the Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys, Love has made some crunch-time mistakes at the end of those games (and a critical one at the end of the first half against Dallas).

In a 13-10 loss to the Browns on Sept. 21, Love threw a third-and-3 interception with the Packers leading, 10-3. While there’s a very valid argument to be made that head coach/offensive play caller Matt LaFleur could have simply run the ball and punted against the Browns’ anemic offense and won the game, Love admitted it was the kind of mistake he cannot make.

A week later, in a 40-40 tie with the Cowboys on Sept. 28 before the team’s bye week, Love lost a fumble just before halftime on a sack that allowed Dallas to take a 16-13 lead into halftime, then dawdled along with the rest of the offense in the closing seconds of overtime when the Packers could have won the game with a touchdown instead of settling for the game-tying field goal as time expired.

Again, LaFleur rightfully bore responsibility in those scenarios, admitting he was too aggressive at the end of the half in Dallas and saying he and his coaches clearly didn’t sufficiently emphasize the urgency needed at the end of overtime.

But Love didn’t need anyone to make excuses for him. He knew full well at midweek that his otherwise strong four-game résumé has been marred by those mistakes.

“I got off to a great start. That obviously takes everybody on the offense to do that — blocking, receivers, everybody making great plays. [But] I think there’s still room to keep improving, keep trying to be as consistent,” Love said. “I still think there’s a couple of misses out there. And obviously, the turnover’s a big one, in that Cleveland game. Wish I could get that one back.

“Obviously, a negative play, turnovers — those things suck. It’s, how quickly can you flush it and move on? Learn from it, move on and don’t let those things happen again. But you’ve still got to be confident in yourself, still go out there and not be hesitant to let the ball fly.”

Asked if he agreed with the assessment that Love has played very well, save for those crucial errors, offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich replied, “Yeah, I would agree with that completely. You’ve seen some really great things from him [and] a couple of bad turnovers. But other than that, he’s played really well.”

Here are three other aspects to Sunday’s matchup worth watching:

1. NO AVERAGE JOE

When Love crossed paths with then-Browns quarterback Joe Flacco after that Sept. 21 matchup, he never imagined he’d be seeing the 40-year-old Flacco again less than a month later.

But that’s exactly what will happen Sunday after Flacco was traded to the Bengals on Tuesday and will start instead of struggling backup Jake Browning, who threw eight interceptions in just over three games since the Bengals’ franchise quarterback, Joe Burrow, suffered a major foot injury.

“No, it was not, ‘See you in a few weeks.’ I was not expecting that one,” Love said. “But that’s how the NFL is, man. Crazy stuff happens. Obviously it’s probably weird for the defense going up against him [with a] pretty close timeline. We’ll see. It’ll be interesting for him. New team. New situation. We’ll see.”

This actually isn’t the first time such a scenario has happened to the Packers. In 2011, they faced Kyle Orton as the Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback. Two months later, they saw Orton again, as the Kansas City Chiefs’ starter.

While the Packers beat Orton and the Broncos early in the year, he got his revenge with Kansas City, helping the Chiefs put an end to the 13-0  Packers’ unbeaten season at Arrowhead Stadium.

Flacco wasn’t great in the Browns’ win last month ( 21 of 36 for 142 yards with one interception and no touchdowns) but if he can lead the Bengals to a win, he’d become only the second quarterback to ever beat the same team twice in one season while playing for two different teams.

The other? Jack Kemp, who led the AFL’s Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers to victories over the New York Titans in 1962.

“I think my personality probably ends up helping me here,” Flacco told Cincinnati-area reporters on Friday. “You just kind of have to go with it, and embrace whatever it is, and meet it head-on. And then also when you’re in these situations, it’s a good reminder of the fact that we get to play a game for a living. And it makes it almost a little bit easier to not make it bigger than it actually is.”

2. MIDDLE MEN

Whether correlation actually means causation in this case, no one can say for sure. But it sure felt like more than coincidence that, in their 40-40 tie in Dallas, the Packers defense allowed the Cowboys offense to score touchdowns of 5 of 6 possessions after Devonte Wyatt went out with a knee injury.

Wyatt was ruled out for Sunday’s game at the end of the week, meaning the defense will count on Karl Brooks, Colby Wooden, Nazir Stackhouse and Warren Brinson against the Bengals.

“He’s having a great year. I mean, not a good year. He’s having a great year,” defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said of Wyatt, who two sacks, six tackles and four pressures on the year. “He’s been really physical in the run game, but the other thing he’s been doing, he’s been such a good pocket push guy in his pass rush and he’s been so effective collapsing the pocket.

“Certainly, he was missed in that game a lot.”

Added edge rusher Micah Parsons: “I just think about a guy that is very selfless, very charismatic. And I think he’s just a true dog. … When you see when he’s in there versus when he’s not, he commands attention, he knows how to play the run, get to the pass rush.”

For Brinson, it’ll mark his NFL debut after being a healthy scratch the first four games.

“At Georgia, we had a saying, ‘Work while you wait,’ because you never know when your number’s going to be called,” said Brinson, a sixth-round pick who played for the Bulldogs alongside Stackhouse. “I was just trying to prepare like I’m going to play every week. I’m very excited. Super-excited.”

3. NO MORE LINE DANCING?

Although they went into the weekend with three of their five starting offensive linemen on the injury report as questionable — right tackle Zach Tom (oblique), left guard Aaron Banks (groin) and left tackle Rasheed Walker (quadriceps) — the Packers are expecting all three to play.

That would give them their preferred starting five to open a game for just the third time this season — and, honestly, the second time doesn’t really count.

That quintet was together for the Sept. 7 regular-season opener, only to see Tom and Banks depart with injuries. Both players started the Sept. 21 game at Cleveland, but Tom lasted only one snap before departing, and Banks left not long after that. Both linemen sat out the pre-bye tie in Dallas.

“When you’ve got your best guys out there, that’s huge for an offense, for sure,” Stenavich said. “But, we’ve got a lot of guys that have a lot of playing experience now up front, so we’ll see how it plays out. However the injuries progress this week, hopefully we can get everyone back and be at full strength. But we’ve kind of got to just play it by ear for now.”

One thing is certain: Tom and Banks do not want to spend another game as spectators. Their demeanors on the sideline have been less than positive.

“Sometimes, people are like, ‘Why do you look so angry?’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t help it, man. I want to play,’” Banks said. “Nobody wants to sit on the sideline, nobody wants to be hurt and not out there helping the team win. So it’s easy to get frustrated and get down on yourself. But that’s where you have to take the turn and stop saying ‘Poor me!’ and start helping the team in whatever way you can.”

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