Can the Packers keep themselves afloat until Jordan Love is fully healthy again?

There are 28 NFL teams that haven’t even started the regular season, and one team is already in some trouble.

For the Green Bay Packers, the best thing they could say on Saturday is the news could have been worse. Quarterback Jordan Love has a sprained MCL in his left knee. At least it’s not a season-ending ACL injury. But that doesn’t mean all is well either.

Love is expected to miss some time, according to reports. NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero reported the initial timetable is 3-to-6 weeks for Love’s return though it could be earlier than that. No matter how much time Love misses, it’s hard to view the Packers quarterback missing any games in a very tough NFC North — or playing through a tough injury — as positive news.

Green Bay is 0-1 and their best case scenario is their quarterback returns relatively soon, likely before he’s fully healed, and when he does get back they’re not too far behind everyone else in the NFC.

The Packers weren’t really prepared to be without Love. When you spend $220 million on a quarterback contract, you’re not investing a lot into the backup position.

Malik Willis came in for the final two plays of Friday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles after Love got his leg pinned underneath a defender, which injured his knee. Willis has been with the Packers since just Aug. 27, when the Tennessee Titans traded him to Green Bay. The Packers gave only a seventh-round pick for Willis, which means the Titans might have been ready to cut him and Green Bay viewed him as a potential developmental project. But there’s no time to develop him now.

Willis, a 2022 third-round pick, has looked good at times in the preseason. He has not played well in the regular season. He has three NFL starts and a career passer rating of 48.7, with a 52.2% completion percentage, no touchdowns and three interceptions. Sean Clifford has shown so little that he was demoted to the practice squad and passed by a quarterback who has been with the team less than two weeks and has a career passer rating of less than 50. But if Love does miss time Clifford will be an option, along with Willis and probably anyone else who is available.

The time missed with an MCL injury has varied. Aaron Rodgers suffered a sprained MCL along with a tibial plateau fracture in the first game of the 2018 season, but came back in that game and didn’t miss any time. In 2015, Ben Roethlisberger missed four games due to a sprained MCL. Love’s return will depend on a few factors.

But even if Love returns faster than first hoped, his play could be affected for a while.

Can Jordan Love get healthy this season?

Last season, Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence suffered a high ankle sprain late in the season. The level of his play dropped, the Jaguars collapsed and missed the playoffs. He said he didn’t feel right until “close to March,” which was roughly four months after the injury.

A high ankle sprain and sprained MCL aren’t the same injury but it’s a reminder that just because a player is back on the field, it doesn’t mean he’s healthy. The Indianapolis Star wrote in 2019 about how eight quarterbacks from 2013-19 dealing with sprained MCLs had an average drop of 10-15 points on their passer rating when they came back to play.

“It was frustrating not feeling like you’re healthy every week,” Lawrence said when he met with the media at the start of training camp this year, via SI.com. That’s something — obviously in football, you’re going to deal with things every week that bother you and that nag you a little bit, but not to the extent that some of the stuff I was dealing with isn’t what I’m used to. It can be frustrating going out there and not being able to practice full speed and not being able to get some of the reps that you want to get.”

The Packers don’t have a truly terrible stretch of their schedule the next six weeks. Green Bay plays vs. Colts, at Titans, vs. Vikings, at Rams, vs. Cardinals, vs. Texans. But how many of those teams can the Packers beat with Willis, Clifford or a less-than-healthy Love at quarterback? And how many games are the NFC North favorite Detroit Lions going to lose throughout this season? Competition for wild-card spots in the NFC will be intense too. The Packers already have one loss and each one they take in September or early October will put them in a big hole.

While Love did avoid a season-ending injury and that gives the Packers some hope of still making the playoffs, one injury late in Friday night’s game should change the level of optimism they had for this season. Green Bay will hope it can survive until Love is all the way back, whenever that might be.