Where to watch Packers vs. Commanders: Can Jayden Daniels punish Micah Parsons-led defense?

In the Week 2 edition of "Thursday Night Football," the Green Bay Packers (1-0) play host to the Washington Commanders (1-0).

These are two teams that got their seasons started with resounding victories over division rivals. The Packers hosted the Detroit Lions and blew them out of Lambeau Field. The Commanders hosted the New York Giants and summarily sent them packing back up I-95. 

This game will feature star players on both sides of the field, as we'll get to see guys like Micah Parsons, Jayden Daniels, Jordan Love, Terry McLaurin and a whole lot more doing their thing on a national stage. It should be an incredibly fun night for football fans across the country.

Which of these two NFC contenders will improve to 2-0? We'll find out soon enough. Before we break down the matchup, here's a look at how you can watch the game.

Where to watch Commanders vs. Packers live

• Date: Thursday, Sept. 11 | Time: 8:20 p.m. ET
• Location: Lambeau Field (Green Bay)
• Stream: Amazon Prime 
• Follow: CBS Sports App
• Odds: Packers -3.5; O/U 48.5 (via DraftKings Sportsbook)

Bet NFL Week 2 games and NFL odds at DraftKings, where new users get $300 in bonus bets and over $200 off NFL Sunday Ticket.

When the Commanders have the ball

The Packers' defense totally dominated their game against the Lions in Week 1:

The Packers held them to just 246 yards despite the fact that they ran an incredible 65 plays -- yielding an average of just 3.8 yards per play. To put that in perspective, consider that the Lions ranked second in the NFL with a 6.2 yards-per-play average a year ago, while the Chicago Bears ranked last at 4.5 per play. 

Gone were the explosive gains we've gotten so used to seeing from Detroit over the last few years. The Lions gained 20 or more yards on a scrimmage play just once all game, per Tru Media. They had 76 explosive plays in 2024, the third-most of any team in the league, and they also created explosives at the fourth-highest rate on a per-snap basis. But the Packers were having none of that on Sunday. They had the Lions operating in what seemed like a five-by-five-yard box all game long.

They'll face a similarly-tough but stylistically different challenge on Thursday night against Washington, where the main threat is the quarterback himself in Jayden Daniels. 

The Commanders piled up yards (432) but not points (21) in their season-opening win against the Giants. That's because they ran the ball with an incredible degree of success, with Daniels rushing 11 times for 68 yards, Jacory (Bill) Croskey-Merritt carrying 10 times for 82 yards and Austin Ekeler and Jeremy McNichols combining for 51 yards on their 10 carries. 

Green Bay, meanwhile, did just about as good a job as possible of shutting down Detroit's own explosive run game. According to Tru Media, the Lions failed to reach the line of scrimmage on 31.8% of their rushing attempts, and they averaged NEGATIVE 0.1 yards before contact per carry. Yes, they were, on average, contacted in the backfield whenever they ran the ball. That's how dominant Green Bay's defensive front was against Detroit's offensive line. Of course, they didn't have to deal with the threat of the quarterback run, so that makes this matchup an entirely different problem to solve.

With the success of their rushing attack against New York, the Commies didn't need Daniels and the passing game to do the heavy lifting, but he managed to get quite a bit going through the air anyway. There were a couple of missed connections, including a deep shot to Terry McLaurin that could have been a touchdown, but Washington got Deebo Samuel (who also had a 19-yard rushing touchdown) going early and often (seven catches for 77 yards) and hit on four pass plays of 15 yards or more.

The question here will be whether this improved offensive line, which yielded pressure on only 29% of Daniels' dropbacks in Week 1 but ranked 20th in average time to pressure (2.48 seconds, via Tru Media) can hold up against what looked on Sunday like the most ferocious pass rush in the league.

Parsons didn't play a full complement of snaps, but boy was he impactful when he was out there. Despite rushing often against Penei Sewell, Parsons made a significant mark on the game with several pressures, one of which forced Goff into an interception, and he later came up with his first sack as a Packer by chasing a scrambling Goff down from behind late in the game. Early snap totals have him playing less than 30 snaps, but still managing a sack, a hit and a hurry. He was that good despite not having practiced all summer or arrived in Green Bay until last week.

And his presence opened things up for players like Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness and Devonte Wyatt to have huge games. That trio combined for 12 pressures, via Tru Media, as well as three sacks and seven quarterback hits. They spent the entirety of the game harassing Goff into quick, underneath throws while the defensive backs rallied quickly to the ball. The typically-stalwart Detroit offensive line was made to look a mess in its first game after seeing Frank Ragnow retire and Kevin Zeitler leave in free agency, so dominant were Green Bay's rushmen all game long.

Parsons should have a fuller complement of snaps on Thursday night, and his presence will likely prove a significant problem for Washington to solve, just as it does for everyone else. And if the pass rush is getting home, then Daniels is going to have to work his magic to both buy time and scramble down the field. That's not something the Packers had to deal with when playing the statuesque Goff in Week 1, so it'll be interesting to see how their rushmen adjust to a much different kind of challenge.

If the Packers do manage to get pressure, they can constrict the space the Commanders' offense has to work with in the same way they did to the Lions. Washington may try to get its offense moving horizontally first so that it can open some things up down the field, which has always been one of the ways Kliff Kingsbury tries to attack. If the horizontal stuff works, then McLaurin and Samuel could find more room to operate than did Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams, who were limited to less than 70 yards between them in Week 1. Either way, Green Bay's secondary -- which had an excellent game last week -- will have its work cut out to stick with those guys on extended plays and coming up to tackle against the run.

With Micah Parsons already wreaking havoc, the Packers certainly looked like a Super Bowl contender vs. Lions

Jared Dubin

When the Packers have the ball

Unlike Green Bay's defense, Washington's did not face a serious offense in the first week of the season. Russell Wilson looked like the worst quarterback in the NFL for much of the game, and we did not really get to see what the Commanders' defense looks like against an offense that can actually challenge multiple areas of the field.

And Green Bay's offense can certainly challenge multiple areas of the field. We saw that even in limited action against Detroit in Week 1, with Jordan Love and Co. out-gaining the Lions despite running nearly 20 fewer plays. 

As we wrote last weekend:

They converted half of their third- and fourth-down opportunities and they were efficient in the red zone, scoring touchdowns on three of their five trips inside the 20-yard line and converting the two others into field goals. 

Jordan Love was both efficient and explosive, spreading the ball around to 10 different receivers. Nobody saw more than five targets on his 22 pass attempts, and nobody caught more than three passes while five different players had at least two receptions. Romeo Doubs had the biggest gain, a 48-yarder on a beautifully-thrown deep ball that set up Jayden Reed's 17-yard touchdown grab one play later -- a snag that gave the Packers a two-score lead they'd hold for the rest of the game. 

Josh Jacobs didn't have his best afternoon with only 66 yards on his 19 carries, but he registered a very good 47% rushing success rate and he found the end zone yet again, scoring on the ground for the 17th time in his 19 games as a Packer.

The Commanders will need to find a way to force Love into rushed decisions so that he takes the types of chances he's liable to take in those situations. Whether and how they're able to generate a pass rush remains to be seen, given that their defensive front is not necessarily a strength and the Packers' offensive line is quite good. 

Washington is still counting on the likes of Dorance Armstrong and Deatrich Wise as its starting edge rushers, with Von Miller and Jacob Martin coming on in rotational pass-rush roles. That's not an imposing group of rushmen, and it's not like Daron Payne, Javon Kinlaw, Jer'Zhan Newton and Eddie Goldman are knocking down the door from the inside, either. 

Given the relatively unlikely chance of heavy pressure, there's going to be a lot of pressure on the Commanders defensive backs when working against Green Bay's rotation of wide receivers. Doubs is likely to lead the group in snaps, while Matthew Golden, Dontayvion Wicks and more rotate across from him and Jayden Reed plays in the slot when the Packers go to 11 personnel looks. 

Reed is still the premier threat despite the fact that he plays fewer snaps than the others, and the matchup of him and slot corner Mike Sainristil is one to watch. So is the one between tight end Tucker Kraft and Washington's linebackers (Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu) and safeties (Quan Martin and Will Harris). Kraft, like the rest of the pass-catchers, doesn't get a ton of volume, but he's explosive down the field and a menace with the ball in his hands.

Of course, Washington also has to deal with the Jacobs-led run game, which never really got on track against Green Bay but which we know can be incredibly dangerous. The Commanders held Giants running backs to a pathetic 30 yards on 15 carries last week, but this is obviously a much different animal for them to contain.

Prediction

Given what we saw from Green Bay's defense and what we already know the offense can do, it is really hard to pick against the Packers -- especially at home. On a short week against an opponent that wasn't seriously challenged in Week 1, we're rolling with the Pack to win, even coming off the high of an emotional victory over a division rival.

Pick: Packers 26, Commanders 20