There’s no debate about who sits atop the Green Bay Packers’ depth chart at quarterback.
Jordan Love is the man, with the talented Malik Willis slotted in to be the backup. The odds of Green Bay exiting the offseason with three quarterbacks on the final 53-man roster are slim. However, if they keep one on the practice squad, it should be Taylor Elgersma.
Elgersma saw little action against the New York Jets on Saturday night, entering the game with less than three minutes left. He finished 3 for 4 passing with 24 yards. Nothing to write home about, and if you’re dissecting Elgersma’s limited reel, you deserve to be running the Sickos Committee X account.
That’s because nothing Elgersma did in such a small sample size stood out on the TV screen, and that’s just fine. It’s the great unknown that should prompt the Packers to consider a practice squad spot for him.
Sean Clifford is Green Bay’s other option at quarterback to fill out a depth role, and they know what they have in him. Clifford is entering his third season as a 2023 fifth-round pick. Had Clifford grabbed hold of things last summer and run with the opportunity, he would have been in line to be Love’s backup.
Instead, Clifford and rookie Michael Pratt floundered during the preseason and throughout training camp. It led general manager Brian Gutekunst to make a trade at the buzzer for Malik Willis before the start of the regular season.
Green Bay threw Willis into the gauntlet in Weeks 2 and 3, and he thrived. He wasn’t asked to carry the team on his back, but he shone in his role as the starter, making plays consistently. Most importantly, he avoided making mistakes that would squander drives.
The same can’t be said for Clifford, and Saturday’s outing against the Jets didn’t do much to prove otherwise. Keeping Elgersma and seeing what he can do with the proper development after coming over from Canada, where he was playing 12-on-12 on a bigger field, should intrigue the Packers.
The Packers shouldn’t keep Elgersma because of the notion that, if in a pinch, he could succeed as the backup to their backup in 2025. If Love and Willis go down — really, if any team’s QB1 and QB2 fall to injury — they’re already in a world of trouble. This is the NFL, not NAIA football. (No disrespect to NAIA, shoutout St. Ambrose.)
You can get away with playing the gadget quarterbacks in certain situations in college. You can get away with having ineptitude at quarterback for a stretch. Look at Michigan last year. Outside of the service academy schools, which primarily run the ball, there was no worse passing game in the country a year ago than Michigan. Yet the Wolverines still went 3-0 to finish the year, including a pair of wins over Ohio State and Alabama.
In the NFL, if you have to play your third-string quarterback for a prolonged period, just pull down the curtains.
Keeping Elgersma isn’t about a contingency plan in the case of a 2025 emergency. The logic here is that they already know what they have in Clifford, whereas Elgersma’s ceiling remains unknown. After throwing for 4,252 yards and 35 touchdowns along with a 73% completion percentage, Elgersma hoisted the Hec Crighton Trophy, the Canadian equivalent of the Heisman.
At 6’5”, 227 lbs., Elgersma has the look and frame of a quarterback. Is it likely that Elgersma ascends into a starting-level quarterback in the NFL? No. When you’re undrafted, coming over from a different country where you played under different rules and on a different-sized field, the odds are already against you.
Is it likely that Elgersma develops into a backup-caliber quarterback in the NFL? Probably not, but it’s not an insane proposition.
The time to pivot is now. Unless Elgersma looks severely overwhelmed in the rest of his preseason chances, while Clifford looks like he’s solved the riddle, it makes far more sense to roll with Elgersma as the practice squad quarterback.
The unknown could ultimately reveal a hidden gem of some kind. Elgersma offers that. Clifford doesn’t.