LOS ANGELES – In his second game back from a knee injury, Packers quarterback Jordan Love didn't play his best by any stretch.
But he showed one of the qualities his head coach and teammates love most about him in the 24-19 victory over the Rams.
He hangs tough and just keeps playing the next play.
Witness the end of the first half Sunday at SoFi Stadium, when Love made the type of play that will go on the reel of worst lowlights in his career.
Facing third-and-12 from his own 8-yard line with just over two minutes before intermission in a 7-all tie, Love rolled out looking to make a throw downfield.
But when he planted his feet to get his body behind the ball, a free blitzer from his blind side hit him and knocked him backward. As he was going down, Love was determined to avoid the safety and tried to throw the ball away. He was so off-balance he couldn't get anything on the throw, though, and his desperate floater was intercepted for a pick-six. The Rams suddenly led, 13-7.
"To throw a pick-six, that's never fun," Head Coach Matt LaFleur said.
But what happened next meant everything.
Love immediately re-took the field, caught the Rams with 12 defenders on the field to convert a third down and then completed three straight passes to Bo Melton for 12 yards, Malik Heath for 7 yards, and Jayden Reed for 18 more.
The drive got the Packers into field-goal range, and despite a sack that forced a backwards throw out of bounds for a 17-yard loss, he calmly hit Dontayvion Wicks on a 10-yard slant on third-and-28 and called the Packers' last timeout with two seconds left.
Rookie kicker Brayden Narveson's 46-yard boot made it 13-10 at the half, and Love was already well on his way to brushing off the regrettable error from moments earlier.
"Specifically with Jordan, that's one of his superpowers," LaFleur said. "We've seen it since the day he was drafted. He just doesn't blink when the pressure comes.
"That's what he's all about."
Love always acknowledges his mistakes, then just shakes them off and moves on.
It was evident last week, too, when after an up-for-grabs interception in the fourth quarter against the Vikings damaged the Packers' comeback hopes, he still led a 90-plus-yard drive for a touchdown to allow for one final chance on an onside kick.
It didn't work out in that instance, but Love didn't let the mistake bother him.
"You just gotta take it one play at a time," Love said. "That's the mindset. Guys on the other team are very good as well. Everybody gets paid.
"The mindset is when a bad play might happen, a negative play might happen, how do you respond and go forward?"
Unfortunately, if he could pick one play in his career he'd really like to respond to but couldn't, it was the late interception in San Francisco in the playoffs last January. There was no opportunity to atone.
But the resiliency Love shows is embodied in the Packers he leads. Maybe there's a chicken-or-egg question to its foundation team-wide, but it's there in both the quarterback and the locker room.
"There's definitely a toughness," Love said. "That's our mindset. Keep fighting. It's a four-quarter game. It's not going to be perfect, never going to be perfect. Adversity is going to happen in the game.
"We've proved we're going to keep fighting, just keep going and trusting the guys."
While that quality will serve Love and the Packers well in this topsy-turvy league, they aren't ignoring the work that must be done to smooth out Green Bay's game.
Penalties and dropped passes continue to bog down drives on an offense that is as explosive as any in the NFL. Jayden Reed had a superb 53-yard catch to set up an early touchdown, and Tucker Kraft's first of two TDs on the day covered 66 yards.
But those 119 passing yards accounted for more than half of Love's 224 on the day. The Packers know that's not always going to cut it.
"We leave a lot of plays out there, and we make a lot of really good plays as well," Love said. "It comes down to consistency, playing clean and executing for four quarters."
It feels like that's coming, it hasn't arrived yet. LaFleur admitted he's "always hunting" explosive plays, and the Packers have cashed in, but other drives that don't include them need to be more steadily productive.
"I was talking to Jordan about this in the locker room – it seems like we're a little bit feast or famine offensively. Either we get the big plays and go score, or there's no big plays and we're punting.
"We do need to get a little bit more consistency."
In the meantime, the ability to bounce back and fight on no matter what goes wrong can help the Packers get there.
