Week 2 Thursday Night Packers-Commanders: Advanced Review

The Packers offense keep humming, and their defense shuts down another top opponent

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2025-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

GB (-3.5) vs WAS

The Green Bay Packers win in convincing fashion, and the numbers agree with viewer perceptions that the score differential over the Washington Commanders should have been even greater. The Packers offense deserves praise for a continued strong start to the season, but it’s really their defense that looks poised to potentially be the difference-maker in a Super Bowl run. The Packers defense held the Commanders efficiency to the lowest EPA efficiency of the Jayden Daniels era, and the second lowest success rate. This is back-to-back weeks of the Packers defense shutting down top offenses from a year ago.

What kept the game a bit closer was a 9.4 EPA advantage for the Commanders on special teams and penalties, including two missed Packers’ field goals (the Commanders missed one of their own), a long kickoff runback and some third-down conversions via penalty. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the enormous gap in fundamental play in favor of the Packers.

Tucker Kraft was the breakout player of the game, providing the biggest play in EPA and win probability impact (+4.2 and +12.9%) with a 57-yard reception, 39 of those yards coming after the catch. Kraft totaled six catches on seven targets for 124 yards and a touchdown.

Jayden Daniels struggled mightily, forced into high volume dropback passing based on gamescript and only completing 24-of-42 passes for 200 yards (4.8 YPA). This negative performance came without a turnover for Daniels, but four sacks taken (-6.1 EPA).

Jordan Love continues to chug along toward MVP consideration, though he, again, wasn’t asked to throw at high volume. Love was the leader in my adjusted quarterback efficiency (AQE) metric after week one, and the numbers will likely look fondly on his higher proportion of air-yards value in this game.