GREEN BAY – How a quarterback's passer rating is calculated can feel somewhat convoluted, but it's universally understood that interceptions are a ratings killer.
So how rare is it that in Sunday's victory over the Bears, Jordan Love posted a passer rating of 120-plus – 120.7 to be exact – despite throwing an interception?
Well, it's the only time Love's done it in his career, and he's just the fifth QB in the NFL this season to do so (according to my research).
For a refresher, passer rating is a measurement of a quarterback's efficiency and production. The key statistics that factor most heavily in the formula are completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown passes, and interceptions.
Touchdowns and interceptions can swing the numbers, positively and negatively, and yards per attempt is another big one. If it takes one QB 30 pass attempts to throw for 250 yards and another 40 attempts to reach the same yardage, the first QB will have a much higher passer rating (all else relatively equal).
For reference, the maximum passer rating for any given game or set of games is 158.3, and the highest passer rating ever recorded over a full season is 122.5, by Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers in his first MVP season of 2011. Rodgers also owns the No. 2 spot on the all-time list at 121.5 in his third MVP season of 2020.
So a 120 passer rating is pretty darn good, even for a small sample size like one game. And to reach it while throwing an interception speaks to just how efficient and productive the quarterback was outside of one regrettable pass.
Love's final numbers Sunday were as follows: 17-of-25 for 234 yards with three TDs and the one INT, which came on his fifth attempt of the game on the opening drive.
Completing 68% of his passes is certainly efficient, and throwing for 234 yards on just 25 pass attempts (9.4 yards per attempt) is highly productive, requiring a number of explosive gains through the air. For three of those 17 completions to be touchdowns boosted the productivity to an elite level.
To see just how strongly TDs and INTs can impact the final rating …
If Love had posted the exact same statistics without the INT – meaning if the interception had simply been an incomplete pass – his rating would've reached 137.3, which would've been his career high for a regular-season game. (His near maximum 157.2 in the playoff victory at Dallas two seasons ago is his overall single-game high.)
Conversely, if Love had posted the exact same statistics but with just two TDs (instead of three) and one INT, his passer rating would've been 107.8.
In short, throwing TD passes of 23, 41 and 45 yards in length is a whale of a big-play day that not even one interception can mar too much.
Love nearly had a 120-plus passer rating with an INT last year when he threw four TDs against Arizona, but wound up at 119.5 (22-of-32, 258, 4-1). But it's still awfully hard to reach a rating number like that with an interception, because it takes so much additional production. Even the four-time MVP Rodgers has hit 120-plus with an INT just three times in his entire career.
The other QBs in the NFL to hit 120-plus this year when throwing an INT are Seattle's Sam Darnold (twice), New England's Drake Maye, the L.A. Chargers' Justin Herbert, and Atlanta's Michael Penix.
Darnold actually lost one of the games, as a late INT set up Tampa Bay's game-winning points. Penix is the only one to do it throwing just two TD passes, and Herbert's game was almost identical to Love's statistically. The stats from the 2025 games noted are listed below:
120-plus passer rating w/INT, 2025
141.0, Darnold at WAS (21-24, 330, 4-1)
135.8, Maye vs CLE (18-24, 282, 3-1)
135.4, Darnold vs TB (28-34, 341, 4-1, L)
126.0, Penix vs WAS (20-26, 313, 2-1)
122.8, Herbert vs MIN (18-25, 227, 3-1)
120.7, Love vs CHI (17-25, 234, 3-1)
