Quick Slant: TNF - This is America
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
Washington, D.C., is the nation’s capital; it’s named after one of our founders—our first president, a military general whose integrity and steadiness helped secure independence for the colonies while assuring, along the way, that power should serve the people, not a ruler. The city began as a living monument to democracy; today, it is soaked in history and has long served as an international nexus where world leaders converge to shape the direction of humanity.
Since its powerful origins as a bulwark against totalitarianism, Washington has remained so through centuries—its lit white towers standing confidently over sunsets, calm breezes carrying the reassuring quiet of freedom on cool evening air. For generations, the world received its message: here, you can be anyone you want; here, you can find the peace that has long eluded you; here, you are welcome.
This is America.
Green Bay, Wisconsin, is a city of 106,000 people—just larger than Sandy Springs, Georgia, Brockton, Massachusetts, and St. George, Utah—just smaller than Dearborn, Michigan, Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and Palm Coast, Florida. It began as a fur trading post on the shores of a frozen river—a gateway for commerce, migration, and the mixing of cultures in the Upper Midwest. Over time, it became a city defined by one ubiquitous flagship: the Green Bay Packers, and one singular monolith: Lambeau Field.
Today, local coffee shops and farm-to-table restaurants have sprung up where French fur traders once bartered. A handful of tech developers and craft beer artisans occupy loft apartments downtown while the sons and daughters of past generations still earn their keep at paper mills, shipping yards, and family-run shops as old as their ethic. Parents open SUV doors in drop-off lanes; families pray in pews of creaky old wooden churches. There are still little league Saturday mornings, humble parades guided by blasting trombones, and picket fences.
This is America.
These communities are quite different—one urban, international, and bursting with tourism; the other, a slower-paced weekend tableau of Carhartt and Lululemon. But there are seven Super Bowl wins between them, faces throughout Canton, and a sense of identity tied to their teams’ resurgences. These once proud lands again brim with self-respect; Green Bay may have Lombardi in its past, but each has Lombardi in its sights. Thursday night, they sharpen themselves against the whetstone of the other and audit how warranted their hopes should, in fact, be.
Commanders
Implied Team Total: 22.5
The Commanders and Packers each got off to hot starts. The Commanders had the second-greatest point differential in Week 1, while the Packers ranked fourth.
The obvious difference between them is that Washington played the Giants while Green Bay played the Lions; their opponents were on opposite sides of the quality spectrum in 2024.
Even so, it is easy to feel buoyed by the Commanders’ performance. Making it all the way to the NFC Championship a year ago, it feels as if there is still a reticence to embrace them as fully elite. No, the Giants don’t provide the most telling proving ground, but this is the NFL; teams on the fringe of the upper crust fluctuate in and out all the time. Not only that, but the Giants are a rival, and their coaching staff is desperate. Washington shook them off easily, and that can’t be a bad thing.
Offensively, the Commanders were enough; it is hard to say that they were challenged at all. They ranked 10th in offensive EPA per play and second in offensive success rate.
The Giants' defense came in anointed as much improved; time will tell, but the Commanders consistently moved the ball, producing 25 first downs, good for third on the week. They ran 70 offensive plays, creating the third-most offensive yards in Week 1, trends that, if they could hold, would foster a great fantasy environment.
Seventeen of their first downs (14 passing, three rushing) were attributed to QB Jayden Daniels. One year removed from winning OROY, Daniels didn’t show any signs of a sophomore slump, tossing for 233 yards and a TD while running 11 times for 68 yards. It wasn’t his showiest effort, but it was all that was necessary. The Washington offense steadily chipped away, sustaining drives, but they did have some significant gains as well. Three drops and 12 penalties are what primarily limited their offensive scoring output.
The Commanders were more effective running the ball, but they opted to pass. Washington ranked 10th in pass rate over expected (PROE). They were relatively aggressive as well, ranking seventh in team aDOT.
It’s too early to say that the Commanders prefer to pass—last season, they were pretty neutral—but they may be playing in a pass funnel (something that is also too early to say). The Packers ranked fifth in defensive EPA per rush and eighth in defensive rush success rate, but ranked 15th in defensive EPA per dropback and 17th in defensive pass success rate after one week. This is the smallest of samples, but Green Bay shut down Detroit’s running game, which was highly potent last season. This is one of the great mysteries of Week 1, as analysts continue to wrestle with whether or not the Packers’ run defense is elite or the Lions’ run offense is broken in a post Ben Johnson/Frank Ragnow world.
Based on the earliest tendencies, the Commanders would pass to create offense.
If so, the Commanders may be marginally overmatched in pass protection. Based on last year’s pressure rate over expected (PrROE) numbers, the Commanders’ offense allows slightly above-average PrROE, while the Packers’ defense generates slightly above-average PrROE. Even then, neither margin is overly significant, although the Packers are expected to create better pressure this season with edge rusher Micah Parsons in tow.
For that to have an effect, Parsons will need to play more than the 30 snaps he played in Week 1. To be clear, Parsons will eventually play a heavy snap share; it is simply unknown when that will begin as he settles in with his new team and ramps up after a contractual hold-in this summer and missed practice reps. For now, expect more than 30 snaps, but probably not a full workload.
Even then, Daniels is cool under pressure, as he had the sixth least pronounced drop in QB rating while under duress in 2024. Daniels also easily led the NFL in scrambles, besting Bo Nix by 25.
Additionally, the Commanders added LT Laremy Tunsil, one of the most well-respected o-linemen in the NFL, this offseason, so they are only better than they were a year ago. Between the near net-zero between the offensive and defensive lines in 2024, the fact that each team added one of the league’s best to their unit, and Daniels’ steely nerves, pressure on Daniels shouldn’t be a massive factor.
The Commanders had a decently narrow target dispersal last year; three pass-catchers had higher than 15% target shares: TE Zach Ertz, WR Noah Brown, and WR Terry McLaurin, who led the team with a 23% share.
McLaurin had a career year last season, finishing as the fantasy WR7, after his previous best was just WR16. McLaurin has often been cited throughout the summer as a popular regression candidate after scoring 13 TDs, second-most in the league in 2024, from out of nowhere. His previous career high single-season TD total was seven, which he hit in his rookie season, 2019. The devil’s advocate case would state that McLaurin had never had a quality QB until he was tied to Daniels last year, so this unlocked the potential he always had.
In Week 1, McLaurin only drew a 14% share, and the lion’s share of the passing-game work went to FA signing WR Deebo Samuel, who comes over from San Francisco. Deebo absorbed 34% in his first game, putting up 7-77-0 on 11 targets, adding a rush for 19 yards and a score.
Samuel had a 7.3 aDOT Sunday, slightly better than his career average of 6.6 yards. He was used in the slot 69.7%, a far greater amount than his career 29.4% slot usage. He ran 35.7% horizontally-breaking routes, only slightly higher than his 31.4% horizontal break percentage in 2024. In them, he earned a 40% target per route run rate (TPRR) and a 4.00 yards per route run (YPRR). His win rate was also 13 percentage points better on horizontal breaks than on all routes combined. Samuel doubled McLaurin to lead the team in first-read targets (8), and he gained the most receiving first downs on the team (3).
It is early to say, but Samuel’s usage in the first game seems pretty legit, and we should brace ourselves for the possibility that McLaurin and Samuel are 1A and 1B in the passing game, and not necessarily in that order.
In Week 1, the Packers ran zone on 90.7% of their defensive alignments, which is obviously higher than their percentage will be for the entire season. Their most common alignment against Detroit was Cover 3 (46.5%), followed by Cover 2 (27.9%).
Against the types of coverages the Packers run, McLaurin was best last season, scoring the 25th-most fantasy points/route against Cover 3 and the seventh-most against Cover 2. Samuel struggled against both. This may be a spot where the Commanders' WRs flip-flop in terms of first-read targets.
A lesser-considered tentacle to the Parsons trade from Dallas is that the Packers shipped out DT Kenny Clark as part of the return. Clark had long been a potent run-stuffer (although it should be mentioned that Clark was balanced and could serve the pass rush as well), but his best days are probably behind him. In his absence, the Packers' interior, led by DTs Colby Wooden and Devonte Wyatt, was rock solid against Detroit.
Based on the way the teams played a year ago, the run blocking matchup should be somewhat neutral, but we should be mindful of the possibility that Green Bay has gotten better in run defense than they were last season.
Speaking of trades, the Commanders made one of their own, saying goodbye to RB Brian Robinson Jr., who departs to back up Christian McCaffrey in San Francisco.
Then, before the game on Sunday, they deactivated veteran RB Chris Rodriguez, who was assumed to have a significant role lined up in Robinson’s absence.
One possible explanation for this unexpected flurry of activity may relate to Washington’s confidence in their rookie seventh-rounder, RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt, who backed up RB Austin Ekeler against the Giants. It seems more and more all the time that they are clearing the way so that Croskey-Merritt can pair up with Austin Ekeler for the majority of the offensive snaps.
From his limited work on Sunday, Croskey-Merritt finished fourth in rushing yards, earning three explosive runs of ten or more yards on just 10 carries, including a 42-yard scamper off the RT. He also scored a TD from six yards out, had three forced missed tackles (T-6th), four rushing first-downs (T-4th), the most runs of five or more yards, and 39 rush yards over expected (RYOE, 3rd), which I detailed as one of the strongest signals for extreme upside with RBs.
There was a report from ESPN on Wednesday that Croskey-Merritt will eventually be the lead back in Washington, although it didn’t come from the team. Ekeler was reportedly dealing with a new shoulder injury, but he is not on the injury report.