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The Green Bay Packers did not elevate Desmond Ridder from the practice squad on Saturday and will go into Sunday's regular season finale with Jordan Love as the backup quarterback behind starter Clayton Tune, per reporting from Bill Huber of SI.com.
Love cleared concussion protocol on Thursday, or 12 days after originally suffering the head injury in Chicago. But the Packers have nothing to play for in the season finale against the Minnesota Vikings and do not intend to play Love, arguably the team's most important player for the start of the postseason next week.
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The Packers are locked into the No. 7 seed in the NFC playoffs and will play either the Chicago Bears or Philadelphia Eagles on the road in the wild-card round. Despite Love missing time to end the regular season, there was no sense in starting him against the Vikings and risking another injury that would all but guarantee an early playoff exit.
However, with Malik Willis nursing right shoulder and hamstring injuries and the 48-man gameday roster in need of practice squad elevations at other positions, the Packers passed on bringing up Ridder and appear ready to roll with Love as the backup behind Tune.
The nightmare scenario would be, of course, an injury to Tune that forces Love into the game. In that scenario, the Packers could mitigate the risk of an injury to Love by how the game is called in terms of run and pass.
Having Love as the backup is a situation the Packers have considered all week given the medical situation at quarterback and the desire to rest certain players at other positions.
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Here was Matt LaFleur's answer to a question from ESPN's Jason Wilde earlier this week on potentially using Love as the backup quarterback against the Vikings:
Willis is listed as questionable to play on the final injury report. Love has no game status designation.
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: Report: Jordan Love will be Packers backup QB in season finale vs. Vikings
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