Commanders vs Packers Predictions: Week 2 Thursday Night Football Preview

Washington Commanders @ Green Bay Packers 

Line: Packers -3

Total: 48.5

We open Week 2 of the NFL season with two Super Bowl hopefuls squaring off in primetime. Green Bay is listed as three point home favorites over the Washington Commanders while oddsmakers are expecting offense with a 48.5 point total. Kick-off is set for 8:15 ET and the game will be broadcast on Prime Video. 

Washington Commanders

We kick things off with the road team — Washington is looking to play spoiler on the road tonight similar to what they did early last season upsetting the Bengals in primetime as underdogs. We know the offense revolves around Jayden Daniels and I would expect them to operate a pass-heavy game plan tonight on the road. They were well above average in pass rate during their Week 1 win over the Giants — and I think it’s more than likely we see Green Bay function as a pass funnel defense in 2025. They were absolutely stifling against the run vs the Lions and I expect that trend to continue. Their secondary was the biggest weakness of their team coming into the season and they’re going to need newly acquired Micah Parsons to get home with the pass rush to mask this leaky secondary. Parsons is still ramping up to full healthy, which is good news for the Commanders. Terry McLaurin predictably started slow after missing all of camp, but it’s worth noting Daniels just missed him on what would have been a long TD. Deebo Samuel looked great in his Washington debut and I continue to be bullish on his role in Kingsbury’s offense. Green Bay struggled to defend slot work both last season and in Week 1 so it could be another Samuel game on Thursday night. 

 

The RB room is the hot topic with the emergence of Bill Croskey-Merritt throughout the summer and his 80 yard + touchdown performance in Week 1 while Chris Rodriguez was a healthy inactive. I’m expecting JCM and Austin Ekeler to lead this backfield throughout the season and JCM ultimately taking over as the full lead back. Everyone is rightfully excited about him, but I think the spot sets up better for Ekeler tonight. Green Bay allowed one of the highest target shares in football to opposing RBs last season and that should only continue now with the arrival of Parson’s. Ekeler ran a route on over 50% of Daniel’s dropbacks in Week 1 compared to Croskey-Merrit’s sub-20% and I believe Ekeler is the one that will be most involved should the Commanders be trailing or in a neutral game script. 

Green Bay Packers 

Green Bay was my biggest play on my betting card in Week 1 and they cashed with ease, shredding the new look Lions at home. Jordan Love’’s box score doesn’t look overly crazy, but he was absolutely surgical and was not needed to throw the ball in the second half. Most metrics loved Love a season ago when weighing how difficult their schedule was and that was a big reason why I was heavy on Packers futures over the summer. Their team outlook strengthened even further once they acquired Micah Parsons and cemented them as one of the clear favorites in the NFC. Green Bay is banged up on the offensive line, but I still think they can attack this Washington secondary better than Russell Wilson and the Giants did last week. Aside from how good love was early on in that game – what stuck out to me the most was Romeo Doubs. Every report that came out of Packers camp in August seemed to highlight how good Doubs looked and that comes through on the tape after one week. He led the team in Air Yards and targets and posted over 3.00 yards per route run. He also excelled at getting open ranking first overall in the NFL in average separation score and route win rate per Fantasy Points Data suite. He has the toughest match-up on paper, but I’m not worried and I was encouraged to see Love look his way multiple times in the end zone. He sticks out as a strong bet and DFS play tonight. Jayden Reed is working through a foot fracture and could be a bit hindered on a short week. I expect it to be tough to pinpoint who goes off for the Packers while all their wideouts are healthy, though I do expect rookie Matthew Golden to see increased targets as the season progresses. 

 

There are much less questions to be answered in the Packers backfield. It starts and ends with Josh Jacobs. We saw Jacobs with a huge workload to end last season and that continued in Week 1 seeing over 80% of the Packers RB rush attempts. If the Packers are winning this game, we should see a heavy diet of Jacobs once again and he’s now scored a touchdown in nine straight games. 

Score Prediction: Packers 27, Commanders 20

Touchdown Prediction: Romeo Doubs