Jordan Love's task: Take the No. 7 Packers, one of the youngest team to reach the playoffs in NFL history, on the road against the No. 2 Cowboys, a juggernaut built to compete for a Super Bowl, and win in his postseason debut. No big deal.
That certainly seemed the case for Love. The 25-year-old quarterback torched a defense that ranked fourth in the NFL in EPA (expected points added) per play, with 16-for-21 passing for 272 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Not bad for a quarterback in his first season as a starter.
The Packers' 48-32 rout of the Cowboys wound up looking slightly less impressive on the scoreboard thanks to a 16-point fourth quarter by Dallas. But make no mistake, Love and Green Bay throttled the Cowboys.
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And just as the Packers' win wound up looking less impressive in the end, Love's stat line ended up just shy of a history-making mark.
Jordan Love passer rating vs. Cowboys
Love finished Sunday's wild-card win with a passer rating of 157.2. Football fans will recognize that as agonizingly close to a perfect passer rating of 158.3, a rare stat line for any quarterback, let alone one competing in the playoffs.
For a moment, it appeared Love would become the fifth quarterback to reach the mark. He was so close, Wikipedia had already inserted Love's name into the section of postseason perfect passer ratings.
Just how close was he? On Green Bay's second-to-last full drive of the game, backup quarterback Sean Clifford was the one taking snaps. Love sat on the sideline with 20 attempted passes and a passer rating of 158.3, a perfect mark. But on the next drive, the Cowboys drove 91 yards on four plays for a touchdown, narrowing the score.
MORE: Packers become first No. 7 seed to win a playoff game
That caused Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur to bring Love and the starters back into the game. At first, it appeared Love's rating would be safe. Love handed the ball off to Aaron Jones twice, though the star running back gained just three yards to bring up a third-and-7.
The Packers opted to throw the ball, and tight end Tucker Kraft couldn't hang on to the pass as it fell incomplete. That dropped Love's passer rating by 1.1 points. Had Kraft caught the ball, even if it had gone for no gain, Love's perfect passer rating would have been preserved.
What is a perfect passer rating?
NFL quarterbacks have to meet certain criteria in order to achieve a perfect passer rating. For a game to go in the record books, a quarterback needs to have attempted at least 10 passes.
There are four stats that are counted in a passer rating: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt and interceptions per attempt. To get to at least 158.3, here's how a QB's statline must look:
- CMP/ATT: 77.5%
- YDS/ATT: 12.5
- TD/ATT: 11.875%
- INT/ATT: 0%
Passer ratings are capped at 158.3. So even if a quarterback exceeds all the necessary criteria, it will stop at that mark.
Here's how Love fared on Sunday:
- CMP/ATT: 76.2%
- YDS/ATT: 13
- TD/ATT: 14.3%
- INT/ATT: 0%
Close, but no cigar.
Perfect passer ratings in the playoffs
There have been just four quarterbacks that have achieved a perfect passer rating in an NFL playoff game. If not for Love's late incompletion, he would have been the fifth. He also would have been just the second quarterback to have done so while attempting at least 20 passes.
| Player | Team | Opponent | Date | Final score | Att | Cmp/Att | Yds/Att | TD/Att |
| Don Meredith | Cowboys | Browns | Dec. 24, 1967 | W, 52-15 | 13 | 84.6% | 16.3 | 15.4% |
| Terry Bradshaw | Steelers | Colts | Dec. 19, 1976 | W, 40-14 | 18 | 77.8% | 14.7 | 16.7% |
| Dave Krieg | Seahawks | Broncos | Dec. 24, 1983 | W, 31-7 | 13 | 92.3% | 15.4 | 23.1% |
| Peyton Manning | Colts | Broncos | Jan. 4, 2004 | W, 41-10 | 26 | 84.6% | 14.5 | 19.2% |
Peyton Manning remains the only quarterback to have hit a perfect passer rating in the playoffs while attempting at least 20 passes. Each of the prior perfect outings came with 18 or fewer.
Unsurprisingly, all four games were blowouts on the side of the quarterbacks. All of them came in either the divisional round (Meredith, Bradshaw) or the wild-card round (Krieg, Manning).
