Who Should I Start? Sam Darnold or Jordan Love

Thursday, April 16, 5:16 AM

After arriving on the scene as the QB5 in his first year as a full-time starter in 2023, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love has ended back-to-back seasons in the middle of the fantasy pack. While lingering early-season injuries were thought to affect his play in 2024, he remained relatively healthy until an end-of-season concussion in 2025, finishing respectively as the QB17 and QB15 with strikingly similar numbers across both years. In 2025, his path to the middle was relatively straight. He finished four different weeks as a top-10 fantasy quarterback, tying for 15th in that regard and providing a mostly healthy floor by keeping the ball out of harm's way. He was one of 11 players with two finishes as the QB2 or better, but he also finished with fewer than 10 fantasy points at a rate slightly higher than the top-24 players at the position. With Green Bay saying goodbye to two of its leading receivers from 2025 and expecting a return to health from Josh Jacobs, the team will likely skew run-heavy enough to again cap Love's fantasy ceiling. Tucker Kraft should also be back and healthy early in the season, and the team is expecting significant growth from last year's first round pick, Matthew Golden, so there are legitimate reasons to believe the 27-year-old Love could return to his 2023 form, but the safer presumption is that he's closer to what he's shown over the past two seasons: a strong QB2 in superflex leagues who is just as likely to win you a week as he is to cost you.