FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Matt LaFleur didn't hear the M-V-P chants shouted Jordan Love's way from the Packers faithful who made their presence felt Sunday at Gillette Stadium.
"I did not," LaFleur said after Green Bay's runaway 45-27 victory. "I don't hear anything out there. Just trying to figure out what to call next."
He can be forgiven, because Love was giving him every reason to keep his head in the call sheet to keep dialing up the big plays.
Love heard them, and he was appreciative, though in his typical understated style, he was more interested in talking about his teammates afterward than himself.
"It's awesome," he said. "Definitely a very cool feeling to hear fans chanting that. But that's all I can say."
If Love is going to follow in the footsteps of his Green Bay quarterback predecessors – who combined for seven MVPs – and win a league MVP award himself, this will be remembered as the game that launched his candidacy in earnest.
In just 29 pass attempts, he threw for 372 yards and three TDs, missing the maximum passer rating of 158.3 but just 5.1 rating points. If a seam ball to Tucker Kraft hadn't been thrown about six inches too far, he'd have posted four TDs and likely maxed out his rating.
He made one of the league's top 10 defenses look pedestrian, and that's being nice.
It didn't matter that Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez is one of the highest paid players at his position. Love went after him unabashedly.
"That's just the guys we got on the outside, going out there and making plays," Love said, giving credit to Christian Watson and Matthew Golden, who combined for all but 37 of Love's passing yards.
"It really doesn't matter who it is (on defense). We trust the game plan and trust guys are gonna get open and make plays. It's the NFL. We see great DBs every week. Our mindset is we gotta keep attacking."
It didn't matter that New England came after him with blitzes. He knew where he wanted to go with the ball, and he made the Patriots pay.
"We know what it is," Love said. "We've seen pressure all season. It comes down to guys winning one-on-one outside and the O-line giving me time. They did a great job tonight."
It didn't matter that the offense didn't find a running game until the second half.
The Packers haven't had a reliable one all season really, and have regularly shuffled offensive linemen, two factors that make Love's league-leading passing yardage total all the more impressive. Because he's doing all this practically one-dimensionally.
That's what will start driving the MVP talk.
Love's throws with pressure either closing in or in his face were his most impressive in this game, as they floated out there and came down right on target. It was video-game like at times.
"He's standing in there, he's taking hits and he's still dealing the ball," LaFleur said.
"You just keep calling it. I can't say enough about it. Those are low-percentage throws in theory, but he's making them look high-percentage. They're right on the money."
The really scary thing is the Packers put 45 points on the board and blew two short-yardage situations across midfield in the first half that could've put the Patriots away sooner.
But the last thing Love is going to do is get too high and mighty off one performance. He knows better.
Yeah, he hopes for him and this team, this game is the springboard for bigger and better to come. That's the goal. But he's not about to assume that or take it for granted in any way.
Especially not with the Vikings and Brian Flores' blitz-crazy defense coming to Lambeau Field next week.
Love will give Flores plenty to think about when he watches the film of this Patriots game, but Love also remembers how Green Bay's offense was clicking at Minnesota in Week 1 before it got overrun by Flores' pressure in the fourth quarter.
"You want to get rolling, we always talk about that. You want to stack wins," Love said. "But we've got Minnesota coming to our house next week, someone we lost to earlier in the season.
"The mindset has gotta be all complete focus and preparation on Minnesota. You can't let one game lull you to sleep."
He won't, but he might've awakened some MVP voters to yet another Packers QB to keep on their radar.
