If the Commanders had a chance to get back into the game – to really push the Packers, who had pushed them around the entire first half – it came after the very first play of the third quarter.
Deebo Samuel ripped off a 44-yard return to midfield, and Washington, down 14-3, had hints of life via the big play, an aspect that had been absent in the first half.
It fizzled almost as quickly as it started. After one hard-earned first down, the drive stalled when Jayden Daniels was sacked for a 10-yard loss on third down, Micah Parsons and Edgerrin Cooper combining to dump Washington’s talented signal caller to the ground. On trotted Matt Gay, who missed his second field goal attempt in as many possessions.
The Commanders didn’t go away – in fact, they finally did cut Green Bay’s lead to one possession, 17-10 – but by then, it was too little, too late. Green Bay responded with a touchdown drive of its own, a drained and depleted Washington defense giving up more chunk plays, and a late Washington touchdown did nothing but make the 27-18 final score look slightly less ugly than the game truly was.
Here’s the full depth of the ugliness: Washington’s 230 total yards and 51 rushing yards both represented the fewest since Daniels arrived in the nation’s capital, as did Daniels’ 4.8 yards per attempt.
“It starts with me, it starts with everybody up front, it starts with the whole offensive skill group,” Daniels said. “So it’s not pointing the finger at anybody. Collectively, we’re all to blame, and we’ll get back to work.”
Up front, Washington got manhandled by Green Bay and especially by Parsons, the familiar foe who now has 11 sacks in nine career games against Washington. Daniels was pressured on a career-high 49% of his dropbacks, including 43.6% of his dropbacks in which Green Bay didn’t blitz. Parsons had eight pressures, often feasting on rookie right tackle Josh Conerly Jr., who has struggled in his new position.
Parsons’ half-sack belies his massive impact; the extra blocker he often drew was one fewer Washington player who could run a route or help out elsewhere and one more one-on-one matchup opened up for Parsons’ teammates.
The Packers’ ability to get pressure when sending just four pass rushers allowed the linebackers and secondary to keep a keen eye on Daniels’ scrambling abilities, and he finished with just 17 yards rushing on seven carries.
It also allowed Green Bay to tee off on Washington’s quick passing game, a staple of Kliff Kingsbury’s offense, but only one that can work well if coupled with a strong running game or the threat of the deep pass.
“I just felt like we didn’t find the rhythm that we needed to, really from jump street,” coach Dan Quinn said.
Green Bay, playing freely being a dominant front, made it look like Washington’s offense was moving in slow motion. Defensive backs routinely beat blockers to spots on screens and came down aggressively to break up short passes.
While the Commanders couldn’t generate any explosiveness offensively, the Packers routinely did, racking up nine plays of 15+ yards compared to the Commanders’ two. That included a 57-yard connection between Jordan Love and Tucker Kraft, the duo that burnt Washington for six catches, 124 yards and a touchdown in total.
“That, to me, down the field plays were [a] really big difference,” Quinn said.
The defense was far from the biggest issue – and has in fact been an improvement compared to last year’s unit – but the inability to get stops in key situations loomed large. Green Bay went five for 12 on third down, and that included a 14-yard scramble from Love on a third and 9 on the Packers’ first touchdown drive.
Though the rushing defense wasn’t bad per se, it also wasn’t close to the dominance from a Week 1 win over the Giants. Green Bay ran 30 times for 135 yards (4.5 yards per carry) five days after the Giants ran 23 times for 74 yards (3.2 yards per carry).
The issues running the ball and stopping the run may have deepened, too, with injuries to Austin Ekeler (Achilles) and Deatrich Wise Jr (quad). Both players were carted off, though Quinn didn’t have more detail on either postgame.
“It’s gonna be a big loss, but we got guys that gotta step up and are more than capable of stepping up,” Daniels said of Ekeler’s injury. “But it’s always tough losing veteran players.”
In a game in which Washington had to scrap and claw for anything positive, a pair of misses from Gay proved crucial, too. Though both were from 50+ yards, Gay struggled in the preseason, and his long-distance kicking last year (3 for 9 from 50+) doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence, either. Washington, which used four different kickers last year, certainly doesn’t want to add that item to a growing to-do list over the next 10 days.
The offense hasn’t been nearly as crisp as Washington wants through two games. After a terrific opener, Washington’s defense gave up far too many big plays, an issue that plagued the unit last year. The kicking game is an issue again, and two key veterans went down with injuries.
As Quinn repeated multiple times, Washington simply “didn’t hit the marks” it wanted to across the board. Perhaps this game, against a team of Green Bay’s caliber, showed just how far away those marks are, even if it’s still early in the season.
“We got 10 days until our next game, so it’s nothing to dwell about it,” Daniels said. “It’s early in the season. I wouldn’t expect anyone in this locker room to hit the panic button. We faced a really good team, and we came up short, so we’ll move onto the next game.”
