Packers-Commanders Week 2 TNF Recap!

0:00Nick Shook:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Lowe's knows Sundays are for football. So tackle your home improvement projects by Saturday and earn your Sunday with great deals on LG and Bosch appliances, select Bounty and Swiffer cleaning products and more. Then once your to-do list is done, get ready to kick back, relax and enjoy the game. Shop in store or online now and earn your Sunday with help from Lowe's, official partner of the NFL. Life moves fast. At American Military University, they're ready to help you keep up. AMU's flexible, affordable online programs in cybersecurity, IT, space studies, and more are designed for service members, veterans, and their families.

0:43Nick Shook:AMU provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you. American Military University. It is made for what's next. Learn more at amu.apus.edu. Zach, nice vacation spot, but without T-Mobile 5G home internet, it's scary here. Don't open it. Relax. I ordered T-Mobile 5G home internet with same-day delivery powered by DoorDash. Nothing to be afraid of. We're saved. Get T-Mobile 5G home internet delivered the same day. Powered by DoorDash. Just 35 bucks a month with auto pay and a voice line. Plus taxes and fees. Same-day delivery for most internet eligible customers. See if it's an option during checkout.

1:27Nick Shook:Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Health care just got less painful. Shotgun slot left And faking the handoff Love rolls right Throws end zone Tucker Crouch Touchdown And a Lambeau leap To the north end zone Stands a beat Will Harris On a beautiful play fake By Jordan Love Tucker Crouch Eight yard Touchdown reception That was Wayne Larravee One of our favorites on WRNW.

2:27Tucker Craft scores the final touchdown for the Packers on Tucker Craft Night at Lambeau Field. The Packers win 27-18 in a score that absolutely flatters the Washington Commanders. I'm Greg Rosenthal in the Chris Wessling Podcast Studio talking to my friend Nick Shook across the country in Cleveland. It was about as one-sided a 27 to 18 victory could be with Kraft piling up six catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. Chuck, if you didn't realize before tonight that Tucker Kraft was getting closer and closer to top five territory among all tight ends in the league, certainly in that mix. You know, now you're looking skeptical, Shooky.

3:18Nick Shook:I mean, that catches me a little bit by surprise. But when you put up numbers like that, I mean, it puts you in line for a sponsorship. Mac and cheese, Kraft Mac and cheese. Let's go. Let's pair up with this guy. He had a hell of a night. Let's get him a deal. OK, last season, I would say if you look at his explosiveness, his versatility and like the different types of routes that he can run, but he can also block. I mean, he is a big dude that moves so well. Only 24 years old from South Dakota State, a third round pick and 707 yards last year and seven touchdowns. And I know he had a quiet week one, but I think he's awesome.

3:52And yet I don't want to start with love who is trying to solve the, the a dot crisis in the league. That's average depth of target all by himself. Like everyone's dink, dink and dunking. And, and he's just bombing away. I just don't, I don't think we can start that way. We have to start with the defense again. Like you trade for one of the greatest edge rushers I've ever seen in my life two weeks before the season. And then in back-to-back weeks, you play two teams that made the divisional round a year ago in these NFC playoffs. Two of the big contenders that the Packers are going to have to get through to get to where they want to be.

4:30And the games really aren't competitive. They're in a different class in these two games than the Lions and the Commanders. And the number one reason is the defense. What stuck out to you?

4:42Nick Shook:well I mean we spent a lot of time talking about how Parsons you know builds up this defense strengthens it but what I really think he does is he completes it and he's not out there on a every play basis but he's out there enough and obviously he shows up in the box score but watching this game tonight I felt as if Parsons addition allowed Jeff Halfley the full agency to do whatever he wanted and there were multiple instances we everybody talks about disguising defenses and let me tell you in the first half especially he disguised like crazy I'm sitting there i wish every game was in prime vision by the way because it's a lot easier to look at what the defense is doing from that angle than the traditional broadcast angle so i'm watching in prime vision i'm diagnosing coverages pre and post snap and every snap i'm going oh it's six now it's six now it's three six now it's two well this looks like two man oh they just rolled to three like that's what they did the whole first half and jane daniels just took what was there which wasn't much because of jeff halfley's scheme and the reason he can do that is because of guys like parsons and there was an example in the second half where there's a two-play sequence Parsons rushes outside on Connerly.

5:41Nick Shook:Connerly kind of shields him away. Ball gets out. Next play, maybe two snaps later, Parsons fakes outside, drills inside, hits Daniels. It's a quick pressure. It's a sack. It's one of those game-changing plays. And then there's another instance in which they chip in with Austin Eckler and Connerly. And Edge Cooper's coming from the other side. This is a complete defense. This defense is going to cause problems for any offense they face. The Washington Commanders could do nothing tonight. I don't care who was a quarterback, who was at receiver. the Packers defense is for real. I'm so glad you pointed out that two-play sequence.

6:13I thought about that too. And he did play more tonight, 44 snaps, essentially the same amount of snaps as the other defensive linemen in this game. I mean, they rotated him out, but that's typical. He definitely was a bigger factor tonight. And we say it doesn't all show up in the box score, and that's true. He drew a penalty on the play that he had a sack, another holding penalty that helped to kill a drive, and a false start on Larry Mutonso, who was trying to jump out of his stance to try to stop Micah Parsons. And yet he does show up in the stat sheet, too. Two quick pressures, eight quarterback pressures, over 20 % pressure rate, which is sky high.

6:56And you mentioned the sack where he got inside of Connerly. We've got that sack. Quarterback waiting for the signal.

7:04Nick Shook:Now here's the snap. Rush on. Daniels steps up. Penalty marker down. Daniels has set back outside the 30-yard line. Micah Parsons arrives on the scene. Edger and Cooper was also there. Love that play by Parsons. You know you're a beast when the other team gets called for a hold and you still finish the play. Like the commanders had the lowest yards, 230, in the Jaden Daniels era. despite having a lot in garbage time there with that last touchdown drive, really the whole second half almost felt like garbage time. Although this game was much closer than it should have been. And based on the results of the, some primetime games last week, I guess you can never say it's totally garbage time.

7:48And they also only had two explosive plays out of 65. And that would have been the lowest explosive play rate. I think of any team in any game last year, which is crazy to think about. And so he just had to get rid of the ball so quickly, Jaden Daniels. And obviously Parsons was the number one reason why. But we're seeing production from a lot of the guys. You mentioned Edger and Cooper. Him and Quay Walker have looked good together. Lucas Van Ness had a couple of nice moments tonight. Rashawn Gary had a sack. And the front seven is so good. Remember there were questions about the cornerbacks?

8:22That's all I was talking about in training camp. Like this defense is proving like you don't need stars at cornerback if all the other positions are so good.

8:30Nick Shook:No, they're winning the trench battle. They went on both sides of the ball tonight and, and it really limited what Washington could do. Like I said, Daniels was reading coverage properly and getting the ball. It's just, there were no options. Now there were some errant throws of course, but that's all produced by a sped up quarterback because he knows he can't trust that he's going to have, you know, more than two and a half seconds to survey and find somebody to throw to. And they played pretty sticky coverage too. Most of those balls that he got in there were, were tight windows. I think their tight window number was like incredibly low.

8:56Nick Shook:Like I think Daniels threw 11 passes into tight windows tonight. That's pretty high. Like that, that indicates that nobody's getting open because the defense is so good. And so, like I said, they are, this defense is going to travel. This defense is going to be their hallmark. We can talk about how well Jordan Love and everybody else in the offense is playing, which we can get to because they're playing very well. But the final score kind of tells the story of how I think a lot of the season is going to go, which is they don't really need to put up a ton of points if the defense continues to play like this.

9:21Nick Shook:And Jeff Halfway is allowed to do whatever he wants, which is exactly what he did tonight. The crazy thing is you get 12 quarterback hits and four sacks, which is very difficult on Jaden Daniels. But it's not like he was holding on to the ball forever. He was trying to get rid of it pretty quickly. And that speaks to the eight passes defense. That's a huge number. The cornerbacks are so confident that the pressure is going to get there quickly that you saw Keyshawn Nixon, especially, who had an incredible game. Five passes defense in one game. that might end up being you know tops of the entire season it'll certainly be like the top five cornerback passes defense game of the entire season he was great what a what a career arc for this guy who was a backup and a great return man and then develops into a nickel and now he's in every down player who's really playing well for them so it's all coming together for this team their defense is the scariest unit maybe for any team uh early in this season i know this is only the first game in week two, but man, they're good.

10:21They have two road games before a week five by at Cleveland and at Dallas. So a chance there for the Packers looking ahead to get to four and oh, and I feel so good about that because it is a complete team on a night. They were missing two offensive linemen. Nick, that made a combined hundred and sixty five million dollars in contracts this offseason. That was their guard Aaron Banks and then their right tackle Zach Tom both out with injuries in the short week. you wouldn't have known. I mean, they were moving the ball up and down the field. Sometimes they couldn't quite finish drives. They could have had even more points.

10:55But ultimately, they were making receivers open. As long as Love got a little protection, they basically were hitting shots down the field.

11:03Nick Shook:Yeah, we're looking at total success rates near 50%. Drop back success rate over 52%. And what I really think it comes down to on both sides of the ball was coaching performance that was just very lopsided. And that's no shot at Dan Quinn. I just think that with what Halfley did defensively and the ability to do whatever he wanted. And then Matt LaFleur, who, by the way, got into a bit of a rut, I think early in that fourth quarter, when he was essentially on a put away drive where he was throwing the ball a little too much. And I think he caught himself. And the way he centered himself was so fascinating because most coaches would just turn back to a traditional run.

11:37Nick Shook:Now he goes wildcat and gets it to a receiver who goes around the left end for a first down. It might've been more if he hadn't slipped. And then, you know, they continue from there. They were on a jet sweep in the opposite direction. Like he's opening up the playbook. He's going into his bag and pulling some things out that we haven't seen yet. And they finished that off with a touchdown pass to Tucker Kraft, which capped his perfect night. It was just a great example of how a team is so much more prepared than I anticipated. So much more prepared than the average NFL team. And then they go out and execute because they have the personnel.

12:06Nick Shook:And this is a team also that we were worried about their receiver position because of the injuries that they were dealing with. Turns out it's not that big of a deal when you limit an opposing offense and you're able to put up enough points to win. Well, the receivers aren't like individually putting up huge numbers. Yeah, the first play that you mentioned with the receiver and Wildcat was Savion Williams, who moves just a little bit different. And it's a fun type of play that you can get him involved in. They might need him more because Jaden Reed left this game with what they're calling a shoulder injury.

12:34I have not seen anything yet. We taped this right after the game of a postgame update from the coaching staff. I watched the game here at NFL Network with instant injury diagnosis expert Maurice Jones Drew, who just immediately thought it was a collarbone. I'm not saying it is, but that's what he thought. And he was in a lot of pain. And they're calling it a shoulder injury. Either way, concerning for Jaden Reed, Savion Williams is a young player who can maybe do some of the gadgety stuff that Jaden Reed can do, but certainly isn't as complete a receiver down the field. that spot will go more to their rookie Matthew Golden.

13:13They're really splitting up their reps quite evenly at receiver. Golden was quiet for the second straight game. He did not even have a catch tonight. He had two targets, but he got wide open down the field. And that's what I'm talking about, where this night could have even been bigger. Like Love missed that shot, okay, to Golden, which could have been a monster play, maybe even a long touchdown. And then the throw that he made to Jaden Reed was an absolute dime that Reed made a great catch on, but Reed got tackled out of bounds. He hurts his shoulder, and there was a penalty on the Packers' right tackle, Belton, that ended up nullifying the play.

13:53So you just hate to see that all around, but it was a reminder. Love's deep passes are prettier than anyone, and again, when he was not pressured in this game, I'm bringing up the stats right here. It's just absolutely outrageous. 15 for 17 for 224 yards, 13 yards per attempt, a couple of touchdowns. And for the game, you know, I was talking about average up the target, Shook, like the rest of the league and Patrick Mahomes is like going under, you know, six, seven yards. We saw, you know, Aaron Rodgers was under five yards for the game. I'm trying to find it here. Where is it? Give me the A dot.

14:32It was at 14 and a half yards per throw tonight. I mean, that's outrageous. even including the garbage type averaging 14 and a half down the field is just bananas yeah that

14:42Nick Shook:was one of the standout things um but again i i hate to sound like a broken record guys were open all night like it's a matter of just getting the ball to them and love did that for the most part like we could point to malik heath making that incredible catch down the sideline to extend that drive that ends up in a touchdown that was a huge play early in this game guys are going to make plays because they're getting open because they're getting schemed open and they're athletic enough to do it and they have the quarterback that's the key you can you can go win games with a receiving core that isn't overly impressive when you have a quarterback that can put it on them and do it athletically because there were times where he got pressured the pressure rate for washington was actually pretty decent this uh tonight it was they had 16 pressures near 50 and it didn't really matter at the end of the day i mean you can look at their third down percentage be like oh they didn't have they didn't convert a lot of third downs they were five for 12 they had too many penalties it still didn't matter because for the most part jordan love made the plays that he needed to make to extend these drives and get big chunk plays.

15:35Nick Shook:And he's not afraid to throw the football. That's the beauty of it is he knows he has an arm and LaFleur has given him the agency to go throw it down the field, no matter who's running these routes, because he's going to scheme them open. And that's really makes him dangerous because we talk about the defense. If their offense has that capability on a week by week basis, they're going to be a tough competition for anybody. How about Jordan Love rushing the ball? I mean, early in the game, a key suite sequence. he lowers his shoulder to run and pick up a first down and he absolutely truck stick, uh, Trey Amos, the, I think that was who he ran over the commanders, you know, young cornerback who was one of many, I think guys in the secondary who had a great week one when you're playing the giants and had a rough night tonight.

16:20Quan Martin gave up a big play. Marshawn Lattimore had a bunch of penalties early. So their growth on defense from week one, it's a short week. You're on the road. It definitely took a big step back today. Bobby Wagner, I also thought, you know, was victimized. Whenever you see one of these McVay coaching tree, you know, teams go up against this Washington team, they always are attacking that slot up the middle of the field. Tucker Craft had a monster catch early, which really set the tone. Receiver to the right, Savion Williams. Snap to Jordan Love. Shotgun looks under a blitz. Throws right side.

16:56Wide open. He's got Tucker.

16:59Nick Shook:Kraft 40, 30, 25, 20. Brought down to the far side. Inside the 20 and the 19 of Washington. Quan Martin brings him down. Tucker Kraft wide open for 58 yards to flip the field. Yeah, Matt LaFleur just, he just puts so much eye candy for you. So many different things for you to deal with. And yeah, the middle of the coverage there just gets absolutely confused. that at one point Bobby Wagner almost looked like, I'm too old for this. Like, get me out of here. Can we talk about that? That was a prevailing theme. That was a prevailing theme for me. Not just on that play, because that's like a variety of verts in which you think they're going to attack downfield and you're just out of position.

17:40Nick Shook:But that was one of the themes of the night for me, which is, my God, I knew the commander's defense was old. They look really old tonight. Lattimore getting dusted all night. Even Bobby Wagner not being able to make much of a difference. Even when guys went up front, the second level's not making plays. They're getting cooked in the back end. They just look like a defense. At one point, Al Michaels goes, I don't know if they're just worn down and tired. Like, it is a short week, but this is like the defense you want to face on a short week because they're just an older group, and they looked the part tonight.

18:07Nick Shook:Lattimore's numbers were horrendous. I don't want to see his PFF grade later in this week. He had a lot of catch rate of overexpected of plus 35.2 % on five targets. Not good. Passer rating when targeted his nearest defender, nearly 120. Not good. When that's your best corner, that's what you're leaning on. It's not a good sign for how things might go for you defensively. The PFF has the instant grades up at least for a little bit. He's the lowest graded guy on the team at a 30, which is not pretty. Von Miller's been total no-show in the first two weeks of the season. I'm not going to panic. Now, I was down on the commanders versus consensus going into the season.

18:46But it's also two weeks, and I I really do believe that these seasons, especially when you're playing the first Thursday night game of the year, you haven't played any real football at all. And then you have to play all these snaps and back-to-back weeks. You're just kind of trying to manage things, get some wins early and figure out where you're good, where you're not. Right now, their offense isn't as good as it was a year ago, certainly. And the defense tonight was concerning. The number one concern I would say tonight for the commanders were injuries. Noah Brown left with a groin injury. John Bates, who is one of the best tight end blockers in the entire league, left with a groin injury, I believe, as well.

19:28Dietrich Wise, who they signed from the Patriots to start for them, looked like a serious lower leg injury. I don't want to speculate, but they're calling it leg ankle, and it looked serious. And then, unfortunately, Nick, at the very end of the game, Austin Eckler, who was playing a ton in this one because he's their third down guy. And it felt like they were playing in catch-up mode and they were in third down mode basically the whole game. And he's playing a lot of snaps. And he goes down with an Achilles injury late in the game, carted off, nothing officially confirmed, but they did call it an Achilles.

20:04So you worry about Austin Eckler and his future as a veteran. And you'll probably be seeing Jeremy McNichols more in that backfield. So really a disastrous night for the commanders, especially on the injury front. What did you see from the offense in general and Jaden Daniels? Like, how did you think they were operating?

20:27Nick Shook:I mean, I thought it was fine. I just felt like they were overmatched. Daniels rarely had a lot of time to throw. We talked about his time to throw earlier. I looked it up. It was relatively quick, 2.84 seconds average time to throw. That's not long. By comparison, Jordan Love, 3.14. like that's a pretty significant gap between the two he just didn't have time to throw he like I said before he was deciphering coverage he was getting the ball out on time there just weren't many options it was a lot of checkdowns because nothing else was open and it just kind of spoke to the frustration that I felt watching this offense the entire night I also didn't like the way Cliff Kingsbury necessarily went about calling plays in certain scenarios there were just like interesting formations where you saw an advantage you saw a light box and they end up passing and then they come out in a in a formation that condenses the field and they try to run out of it but they don't have you know blockers in there they're condensing the field in like a shotgun tight bunch formation or like, you know, twins on each side really tight as well.

21:15Nick Shook:It's like not spreading the field, giving yourself natural running lanes. So I think that there's some things that they need to correct there. But more than anything, they just got to do Jaden Daniels some favors. They did not go to Terry McLaurin early. That's a pretty consistent theme. And especially in a game like this, if a defense is going to get after you and also take away your best target, they're taking away Terry McLaurin and asking you to beat them with somebody else. Deebo Samuel catches a touchdown in the fourth quarter, but he's made some plays here and there. That was kind of the story for him in week one as well.

21:39Nick Shook:So they just have a lot of things to fix. I think they have to kind of look in the mirror a little bit schematically and say, where are our strengths? Where can we get better right now? What do we need to work on in the long term? How can we turn this around into a productive unit? Because Daniels, a great scrambler, had no opportunity to scramble all night because of that pass rush and also because of the situations he found himself in. So I think against another team, they'll probably have more success. We're going to look back on this game and think that might have been the first or second example that we could point to as, wow, this Packers defense is for real.

22:08Nick Shook:So I don't really, you know, criticize the commanders too much for their struggles tonight, but they do need to get on track. Right. But you're, you probably have lost Eckler here and he's a good role player for them. You had, you lost Dietrich Weiss, who was going to be a good role player for them. You're now counting on Bill Merritt, Bill Krosky Merritt, who didn't have a lot of action tonight, just as a pure running back. And, and Daniels has just been like a little bit off. So the, the, the changes that they want in the offense, they'll now get to reset a little bit. McLaurin, as you mentioned, was quiet until garbage time for the second straight week.