Week 2 TNF Preview: WAS Commanders @ GB Packers

In-depth breakdown of the Week 2 Thursday Night Football game.

With Week 1 in the books, we swiftly move to the beginning of Week 2 action. And we’ve got another good one here in Green Bay, as the Packers take on the NFC runner-ups, the Washington Commanders. This game should be a fun one, with the 2nd highest game total of the week (48.5). Both of these teams dominated their Week 1 opponents, albeit against varying levels of competition.

On the Packers side, we saw a very strong performance on both sides of the ball. The WR Room was messy in terms of playing time, but we could get some nice values because of that, against a beatable Commanders defense.

The Commanders handled the Giants with ease, as Deebo Samuel turned in a “vintage” performance while Terry McLaurin was eased back in from his holdout with just 4 targets. Jayden Daniels picked up right where he left off, and the Bill Croskey-Merritt saga went from meme to reality.

With plenty to discuss and a lot of question marks still remaining on both sides of this one, let’s get into it…

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Packers Implied Total: 26

The Packers come into this one as decently large favorites against the 2024 NFC runner-ups, favored by over a field goal. It might be for good reason, as they dominated a Lions team that was one of the best in the NFL last year. The Packers were 5th in EPA/Play in Week 1, while 2nd in EPA/Dropback. Against a Commanders defense that was weak last year (22nd in EPA/Play), and that most are expecting to be weak this year, the Packers have the chance for a big performance (indicated by their robust 26 point implied total).

Jordan Love continued his efficient play from 2024 with a 2nd-best-in-NFL 10.36 ANY/A in Week 1. In Week 2, Love is a fine play but I have mixed opinions. On the positive side of things, Love has a matchup against what we think is not a great defense (see above), and we mentioned he’s coming off a strong performance against a theoretically much better defense in Detroit. However, the Commanders did just allow 6 points in their season-opener, posting the 7th best EPA/Play. This was against the Giants offense, to be fair.

Furthermore, schematically, I don’t love the set up for Love. The Commanders ran a lot of man coverage in 2024 (and in Week 1 of 2025), which Love struggled against. He dropped from 5th→32nd (!) among 39 QBs in YPA against man coverage last year. Really uncanny drop off here, which I believe is both the fault of his own and his receivers last year. The Commanders also blitz a good bit, doing so the 4th most in the NFL last year. Love was just 18th in yards per attempt against the blitz, which again is a big drop-off from 5th overall. All things considered, I’m probably just avoiding Love in this one. That being said, I do think the Packers have a sneaky tough matchup in the run game tonight, so Love has a relatively strong chance to improve on his 22 pass attempts from Week 1.

At receiver, this room is really messy right now. The Packers did not have a wide receiver cross a 70% route share in Week 1, with Romeo Doubs leading the way at 65.2%. This was followed by Reed at 52%, and both Wicks and Golden below in the 40% range.

In addition to being the only Green bay wide receiver anywhere close a full-time route share, Romeo Doubs has a strong matchup schematically. We talked about the Commanders blitzing a lot. Doubs, in 2024, saw his TPRR bump from 0.22→0.24 and his YPRR go from 1.90→ 2.63 YPRR when blitzed.

The Commanders also are 1-high heavy team, running it at the 9th highest rate in the NFL from Week 10 on last year. Doubs boosts in efficiency against 1-high coverage, albeit less significantly, jumping from 0.22→24 TPRR and 1.90→2.16 YPRR.

The only issue for Doubs here is that the Commanders were very good against perimeter WRs last year, adding Marshon Lattimore at the deadline last year. They allowed the 6th lowest ANY/A to out-wide targets. The Commanders also added Trey Amos to this secondary for the 2025 season. I think Doubs is still a solid play at cost tonight despite this, and I’m very into his $4k price tag on DK as well as fine with the over on his 40.5 receiving line.

Unlike Doubs, Jayden Reed runs almost exclusively from the slot, registering over a