GREEN BAY, Wis. — J. Michael Sturdivant’s first interaction with Jordan Love surprised him.
Sturdivant, an undrafted rookie wide receiver from Florida, was in the Lambeau Field weight room this spring when Love, the $220 million franchise quarterback and one of the NFL’s best at his position, walked in.
“He came up calling me by my first name,” said Sturdivant, whom everyone calls “J-Mike.” “That kind of threw me off because I didn’t think he even knew who I was.”
Sturdivant has been one of the Packers’ training camp standouts, making a convincing case for his inclusion on the 53-man roster. Folks inside and outside 1265 Lombardi Ave. are probably more familiar with him now, but few should’ve been early in his Packers tenure since they didn’t even use a draft pick on him.
Quarterback Tiers defined
Mike Sando and Lauren Morales-Jones
Love was, however, and such a mundane interaction offered a glimpse into who Love is when cameras are off and why he’s so respected inside the locker room as the leader of the pack — pun intended.
“Being able to get close to a guy like that and be able to talk to him — when I first got here, I was eating breakfast with him and Tucker Kraft every day,” Sturdivant said. “So seeing how humble and how willing those guys were to speak to somebody that just got in the building when I was an undrafted rookie, it was kind of cool.”
Sturdivant is hardly the only player fighting for a spot on the Packers with a story like that about Love.
Cornerback Jaylin Simpson, a third-year player on the roster bubble who’s played in one career game, often played ping-pong with Love at a table in the middle of the locker room when reporters were in there this offseason. Simpson even took the emcee’s mic at Love’s charity softball game in June to trash his quarterback’s ping-pong skills.
They’d play a best-of-three series every other day during the offseason and, shockingly, Simpson said he’s better.
“I’m pretty sure I won the last game, and you’re only as good as your last game, so I’m the winner,” Simpson said early in training camp. “Bunch of the times I won two games in a row, so he didn’t even get a chance to play a third one.”
By the end of Aaron Rodgers’ career in Green Bay, it seemed everyone knew everything about him, perhaps thanks to his weekly appearances on the “Pat McAfee Show.” Love has endeared himself to Packers fans thanks to his play over three seasons as the starting quarterback, but he comes off as more subdued than his predecessor and perhaps shrouded in a bit more mystery, since Love doesn’t always show his personality publicly as Rodgers did.
One thing they share, besides tremendous right-arm talent, is their penchant for good deeds behind closed doors. Rodgers sought out young players at the lunch table to get to know them, stopped a tryout player and his mom on their drive out of Lambeau Field to give him props and gave Keisean Nixon a hug when he first arrived in 2022 (Nixon hated hugs) to help turn Nixon from someone who hated Green Bay to the opposite.
During training camp in 2024, Love was part of a small group that accompanied former Packers center Josh Myers on a private jet to his father’s funeral in Ohio. He’s continued to earn the respect of guys who go to battle for him, no matter their standing on the team.
“As a guy who’s practice squad, who just hasn’t contributed a lot to the team, he makes you feel like you are contributing a lot to the team, like y’all besties,” Simpson said. “I love J-Love. He makes you feel good.”
Love greets young fans as he rides a bicycle to practice during the first day of training camp. (Tork Mason / Imagn Images)
“It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are on the depth chart or anything like that. He sees you on the side of the street, he’s probably gonna talk to you,” said 2025 undrafted wide receiver Will Sheppard.
Isaiah Neyor is another Packers wideout on the roster bubble this summer. He signed on Aug. 6 last year as an undrafted rookie. Eight days later, Love pulled him aside during a joint practice with the Indianapolis Colts.
“I had made a few plays, and I thought I did something good, but he came up to me,” Neyor said. “He congratulated me, but he told me, like, ‘Ay, man.’ He was talking to me about my (route) stem or something like that, just kinda working on that and keeping my angle right. So just him doing that alone, even just the smallest of things, hearing that from somebody like him, it definitely means a lot.
“That alone gives me confidence. ‘OK, if Jordan Love is coming up to me, he has high expectations for me,’ so that gives me confidence going out on the field to know that he believes in me to do what I need to do. … He talks to everybody the same, whether you’re a starter, second-, third-string, whatever the case may be. He treats everybody the same, and that’s what makes him who he is.”
Before every practice, Love conducts custom handshakes with each running back, from feature back Josh Jacobs to undrafted rookie Jaden Nixon, who might be last on the six-man depth chart.
Nixon was caught off guard on his first day at Lambeau Field when Love wanted to create a handshake with him.
“I said, ‘We got a handshake?’” Nixon recalled. “He was like, ‘Yeah, we gotta come up with something.’”
They settled on something simple — one slap of the front of their hands, one of the back, and then two more with the front before covering their face with their hand and doing a little dance.
“I don’t know,” Nixon said. “I just randomly made it up one day.”
Jordan Love’s custom handshakes with all five running backs pic.twitter.com/uv7t7Q21PC
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 2, 2026
Nixon showed genuine excitement talking about this handshake inside the locker room. He stuck his tongue out and made a noise to demonstrate what their dance entails and even had me do the handshake with him.
“When you see a star quarterback like him, that franchise player, the head honcho, it’s like, ‘OK, I’m just a scrub to him,’ you know what I mean?” Nixon said. “As long as I’m not in his way, I’m good. It’s kinda like those old Disney movies where it’s like, don’t mess with the jock, the superstar of the team. But he doesn’t seem like that. He’s just (a) cool, goofy, energetic dude who’s down to earth.”
Fourth-string running back Pierre Strong Jr. said he and Love have an inside joke about whose hair is longer.
“If he wasn’t in this building and he changed his name — he acts like he’s an average guy,” Strong said. “You wouldn’t even think he’s No. 1, made all these millions. … I love him, and he’s like a brother to me.”
MJ Devonshire, perhaps the No. 9 cornerback, said Love has given even him confidence as a third-year player potentially fighting for even a spot on the practice squad.
“When you do something good, he’ll make sure he’ll come up to you and let you know you made a good play or just after practice, dap you up. ‘Good job out there today,’” Devonshire said. “Just making you feel noticed, like everyone’s on this team. Whatever you doing, if you showing up on film, he’s gon’ make sure he lets you know that you showing up on film. So whenever I do something, him being there and saying something to me is definitely an important thing for my confidence.”
Some quarterbacks might have a “C” on their chest because they’re quarterbacks.
Love has earned that honor through both his play and how he treats people inside the building.
Does being a great teammate directly lead to wins? Of course not. It only matters so much. But it’s easier to put your body on the line for someone like Love, who’s perhaps the most beloved member of the locker room for more than his position.