Jordan Love is paid more per year than Brock Purdy. That detail goes missing from most versions of this argument, and it’s what makes Ian Cummings picking Love on PFN’s Football Debate Club a real position rather than a coin flip. Love’s four-year, $220 million deal averages $55 million per season. Purdy’s five-year, $265 million extension averages $53 million, though it carries more total value and far more guaranteed money. Cummings took the higher annual salary and had the numbers to justify it.
“Two of the most underappreciated QBs in the entire NFL,” Cummings said, “and by the analytics in 2025, they went bar for bar.”
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“Brock Purdy scored a PFN QB Impact score of 85.5 that ranked third in the NFL,” Cummings said, “but Jordan Love with a grade of 85.1 was right behind him at fourth.”
The supporting splits are just as tight. Love finished second in EPA per dropback and Purdy fourth. Purdy was second in completion percentage over expected and Love third. Both landed in the top three in third- and fourth-down conversion rate. Cummings gives Purdy the edge in on-target throw percentage. Love was the better caretaker, finishing fifth in the league in interception rate.
Cummings didn’t pretend the peaks were equal. “I will concede Purdy at his best has been the better QB,” he said. “His 2023 season was certifiably masterful, but the most recent body of work has them more or less equal.”
That concession is fair and it’s also the whole ballgame. Purdy’s 2023 was 4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns, a fourth-place MVP finish and a Super Bowl appearance. Love has never made a Pro Bowl. If you’re drafting on ceiling, this isn’t a debate.
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Here’s what the matching grades obscure. Purdy’s 85.5 came in nine games and 284 pass attempts. Turf toe suffered in the Week 1 win at Seattle wrecked the year. He rushed back in Week 4 against Jacksonville, reinjured it and disappeared until Week 11. Mac Jones started eight games in his place and won five.
Purdy came back and won six straight before the finale, some of the sharpest football of his career. It was also less than half a season. He has never played a full 17-game slate in four years. His career high is 16 games, set in 2023.
Love isn’t iron either. He’s gone 17, 15 and 15 across his three years as the starter, and a Week 16 concussion cost him the final two games last season. But 15 beats nine. When the premise is building a franchise, the quarterback more likely to be upright in December is worth something the grade sheet doesn’t capture. Love threw for 3,381 yards with 23 touchdowns, six interceptions and a 101.2 rating, the most efficient season he’s had.
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Cummings arrived at the same place through scheme. “With Jordan Love, I’d be able to maintain that pre-snap autonomy,” he said. “I’d be able to implement progression reads and negative game scripts. I’d be able to move the pocket and the mesh point on play-action rollouts, and I’d be able to threaten all levels of the field against single-high safeties and outside the hashes.”
The Love counterargument isn’t the tape. It’s the calendar. Green Bay sat at 9-3-1 heading into Week 15, lost its last four to finish 9-7-1, backed into the seventh seed for a third straight season and dropped a fifth consecutive game at Chicago, 31-27, after leading 21-3 at halftime. Three years as a starter, three playoff trips, one postseason win.
“Brock Purdy, I have the utmost respect for, but my pick is Jordan Love,” Cummings said.
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Both quarterbacks spend 2026 answering the same question from opposite ends. Purdy has to stay on the field, starting in Melbourne against the Rams with Kyle Shanahan still working back from a July car accident. Love has to still be standing in January, opening at Minnesota on Sept. 13 without Romeo Doubs and without Micah Parsons until at least mid-October. Cummings took the one more likely to answer the bell in Week 17. That’s not the sexy pick. It’s the defensible one.
