1st play - Love needs to know who the defender is. Slay is a multiple pro-bowl CB with sub 4.4 speed. Wicks is 4.6+. Wicks never "had him" and it wasn't close. Wicks does not have the speed to get over top of him to stack. You can tell from Love's body language and position to throw that he was going to throw that route no matter what. At best he should have thrown a back shoulder pass (I miss that so much), but of course the receiver needs to be able to know that and make that move. More importantly, Love needs to see the whole field and check down to Jacobs. If he would have thrown that, it probably would have been a 20 yard gain. But his mind was made up.

2nd play - Regardless of the receiver not taking the route 5 yards deeper, that throw would have been incomplete or maybe picked off by the defender on him. He was already too tight to make that throw. Again, Love should have been a bit more patient, maybe pump faked to him and instead thrown to Kraft who was open. Get it to your guy that gets YAC.

3rd play - I don't agree with "taking a shot" here. Enough time is left, albeit mismanaged, to make that throw to Heath who is wide open, move the chains and reset. Again, Love's body language and position tells that he had his mind made up on that throw as well.

I like Love and believe he has the talent, but he needs to work on things such as field vision, decision based on that vision, Don't get locked in on pre-snap alignment, foot mechanics, throwing accuracy, pump fake, when to run, etc. It's only his 2nd year of full live action. I believe he will improve. I also think there was a bit of panic that set in and not just from him. Can't let that take hold. Another off-season of working with WR's, TE's, and RB's will hopefully work these things out. And get him some better protection. Bad teams, yes. Better teams, no.

It doesn't matter. Several mistakes were made with JL and the WR's this season. 1st Gute failed to pay JL before training camp and JL holdout crucial training camp time he needed to grow. JL came in and looked like crap in the 1st Eagles game and then got hurt...further slowing his crucial growth and timing with the WR's. ML brought JL back WEEKS too early and then JL got hurt again. Although I love Jacobs at RB...the smash mouth grind is doing nothing for JL throwing and WR's have both massively regressed from last seasons surprise heroics in the playoffs. NO JL GROWTH and NO WR GROWTH. Now we need a legit WR1 to put some fire under our WR's asses to compete for their future and their eventual pay days. ML never got out from under the ground game cause it worked against lesser teams and obviously failed miserably against our entire North Division and playoffs. Jacobs and Kraft are the only truly reliable targets JL had this season and ML barely used either in the pass game against the Eagles. ML did a pitiful job against quality teams in 2024-2025. 2025 needs are Elite FA Edge rusher / Elite DL who can rush the passer / Elite FA WR1 / 2- Very good CB's FA/ Draft.