KANSAS CITY, Mo. - At the tip top of Arrowhead Stadium, nervously lounged against the top wall, sat Anna Love. She’d made this type of trip a hundred times before. Traipsing around the country in order to see her son play. Sometimes, just to see him on the sidelines.

“She's been doing that since college when I was redshirting as a freshman knowing I'm not even gonna, I'm not even suited up on the field,” recalled Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers quarterback, last week.

“Every game — since he was drafted,” added Anna Love, telling PackersNews she’d been to each game, “except for last year, the COVID games. I went to the two regular-season games that we could go to. The Buccaneers, which had 25% capacity, I went to that one. And went to the Houston game that had fans.”

But this day, this game, was inevitably different. It was Love’s first career start in the NFL. After starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers entered COVID protocols last week and was ruled out for Sunday’s game, Love — the 2020 first-round pick whom the Packers moved up to draft — got the nod against the Kansas City Chiefs.

At times, especially for a mother, the anticipation can be the most daunting part. Anna Love, though, worked to view it as any other preseason, college or high school game she’d seen her son play in over the course of his career.

“That’s no different,” she promised.

Once the game got going, though, new nerves couldn’t help but appear.

“It’s a roller coaster, it’s very emotional,” Anna Love said. “On one hand it’s very exciting, I’m very excited for him. But I’m scared at the same time, injuries happen. It’s up and down.

"We’ll see if I die of a heart attack out here,” she joked from her last-row perch. “But it’s great, it’s a really great feeling.”

During the game, Anna Love was teetering between beaming pride and knowing what her son’s strengths were under center.

“I think he’s doing awesome. It’s a team sport … he’s scaring me with running the play clock down,” she laughed, “but in my view, he’s doing great.”

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Despite having trekked to many of her son’s games before — and maintaining this one was like the others — there’s something to be said when all eyes are on your son; as such, when all eyes are on you. As TV cameras trained in on Love’s mom and girlfriend in the top row, the other Packers family members around them provided support from the perspective only they could.

“I have these wonderful Chiefs fans in front of me who have been very supportive of my son. We’ve got Kenny Clark’s family here, Randall Cobb’s family, so yeah, we’re good.

“It’s just another game. The stadium is very loud, I will say that, so I feel for him there. But it’s just like all the others, from a mom standpoint.”

In the end, the Packers fell 13-7 to the Chiefs, dropping their record to 7-2.

The FOX broadcast showed Anna and Jordan's girlfriend, Ronika Stone, sitting in literally the last row at Arrowhead Stadium, perched in seats that are apparently typical seats assigned for Packers family members.

Twitter had a field day with the placement, even if those tweeting didn't know whether to blame the Chiefs or the Packers for the distant view.

Ronika Stone, by the way, posted to Instagram that the view wasn't as bad as it seemed. She's a three-time All-Pac 12 volleyball player at the University of Oregon, finishing her college playing career in 2019.

J.R Radcliffe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jordan Love's first Packers start was a special day for Mom as well