The Green Bay Packers missed a golden opportunity to start their season with a win, with Jordan Love leading the offense.

Now they wait for news on whether they will be without their franchise quarterback for an extended period of time.

Love was helped from the field with an apparent injury to part of his left leg in the final seconds of the Packers game 34-29 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday in Brazil. The Packers had no immediate word on the severity of Love’s apparent injury.

“You don’t want the leader of your team to get injured,” running back Josh Jacobs said after the game.

Love, 25, played his first regular season game since signing four years, $220 million contract extension this summer. The Packers entered the season with Super Bowl aspirations, largely because of the emergence of Love, who The youngest team in the NFL surprisingly made the play-offs last season as a first-year starter.

They can’t afford for Love to get seriously injured as they don’t have an experienced replacement.

Malik Willis, a 2022 third-round draft pick out of Liberty, is the only other quarterback on the Packers’ 53-man roster. He’s generally viewed as a far more polished runner than passer. Willis has made three starts in his career — all in his rookie year — and has thrown for 100 yards in none of them.

Also Willis just joined the Packers not even two weeks ago when they acquired him from the Tennessee Titans for a seventh-round pick in 2025. So he may not have developed much of a rhythm with this offense.

Another possibility is 2023 fifth-round pick Sean Clifford. The Packers cut Clifford and rookie seventh-round pick Michael Pratt after acquiring Willis, but later brought Clifford back to the practice squad.

It would have helped if the Packers could have pulled out an early win Friday in a game that Love started, but they failed to capitalize on a night in which they racked up 414 yards of total offense. Penalties, red-zone miscues and an inability to slow Saquon Barkley proved too much to overcome.

“There’s still a lot of cleaning up to do,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It was definitely a sloppy game, I think, on our part. There were some uncharacteristic things that we did as a staff, quite frankly, and that trickled down to our players. So ultimately, we’ve all got to look ourselves in the mirror and find ways to get better, because tonight clearly wasn’t good enough.”

What works?

The Packers intercepted two Jalen Hurts passes, an encouraging sign for a defense that threw just seven interceptions last season, second only to Tennessee in the league. The Packers struggled to get significant yardage up the middle but still finished with 163 yards rushing on 21 carries.

What needs to be done?

Green Bay committed 10 penalties. … The Packers scored just one touchdown on four trips to the red zone, and were forced to settle for field goals three times. … Green Bay’s defense forced three turnovers but otherwise struggled to stop Philadelphia. After forcing takeaways on Philadelphia’s first two possessions, the Packers allowed three touchdowns and a field goal on the Eagles’ next four drives.

Replenish stock

WR Jayden Reed showed that his impressive rookie season was no fluke. The 2023 second-round pick out of Michigan State scored on a 33-yard jet sweep and a 70-yard reception. He also had a 38-yard touchdown catch that was neutralized by offsetting penalties. Reed finished with four receptions for 138 yards. … TE Tucker Kraft was on the field for 64 of the Packers’ 67 offensive snaps, a sign that he has surpassed second-year pro Luke Musgrave on the depth chart. Kraft caught two passes for 37 yards. Musgrave played 17 offensive snaps and had no catches.

Stock down

LT Rasheed Walker was penalized twice for holding and once for a false start. … WR Dontayvion Wicks did not catch a single pass the three times he was targeted.

Injuries

On the same play that Love was injured, C Josh Myers was also slow to get up. Myers said after the game that it was just a case of leg cramps. “I was really cramping the whole second half of the game,” Myers said.

Key figures

30/70 — Reed is one of five players since the AFL and NFL merger in 1970 to have a touchdown run of at least 30 yards and a touchdown catch of at least 70 yards in the same game. The others were Delvin Williams of the San Francisco 49ers against Washington in 1976, Curtis Dickey of the Baltimore Colts against Buffalo in 1983, Herschel Walker of the Dallas Cowboys against Philadelphia in 1986 and Ezekiel Elliott of Dallas against Pittsburgh in 2016.

Next steps

The Packers open their home series on September 15 against the Indianapolis Colts.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl