Give the NFL schedulers a thank you. Every team must sacrifice a week to the Thursday Night Football gods, but at least the Washington Commanders get their short week (and mini bye) early enough in the young season to keep the disruption to a minimum.
The prevailing mood in the locker room after Sunday’s 20-6 win over the New York Giants was one of satisfaction, combined with recognition that there was a lot to clean up before the competition levels up this week in Green Bay against the Packers.
“There’s going to be mistakes, especially early in the season, it’s how quickly you can get back to being right, and you want to continue to build on that to go,” head coach Dan Quinn said Monday.
Green Bay is coming off an impressive win of its own against the Detroit Lions. The Packers kept the high-powered Lions offense out of the end zone until late in the fourth quarter. Given the fact that Green Bay is a team the Commanders may see again in the postseason, here are four keys to getting a win in a short week:
Contain Micah Parsons.
Ignore the former Dallas Cowboy at your own peril this week. Stat-wise, Parsons was relatively quiet on Sunday. He only recorded one tackle, but he did have a sack and one quarterback pressure.
He was also close on several other plays, finishing with a PFF grade of 73.9 in the pash rush category.
Parsons is still dealing with a back issue, which will hopefully slow him down, but Commander’s quarterback Jayden Daniels will no doubt keep an eye on him throughout the game.
Clean up the offense.
This is probably task number one on Quinn’s To Do List in practice Tuesday.
Daniels overthrew Terry McLaurin on what would have been a 70-yard touchdown in the first quarter, threw behind several receivers, and generally didn’t look as sharp as he has in the past. Of course, he still had 301 yards of all-purpose offense, so one can only be so critical of one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
Tight end Zach Ertz had some uncharacteristic drops (although he made up for it with a touchdown), and the team was penalized 12 times for 89 yards.
The good news is all of that is easily correctable, and there is no reason to suspect the offense won’t be much more effective.
Keep the running game going.
The Commanders racked up 220 yards rushing against a good Giants defensive front on Sunday. Green Bay only gave up 46 yards on the ground to the Lions, but that stat is misleading, as the Lions were playing from behind the entire game.
Kenny Clark, the Packers’ big run stopper last year, is now in Dallas via the Parsons trade, which could mean another big game for Bill Croskey-Merritt, who had 82 yards and his first career touchdown last week.
Keep Jordan Love in check.
In this golden age of quarterbacks, Love sometimes gets overlooked. He was cool and effective last week, going 16 of 22 for 188 yards and two touchdowns. He also had a QBR of 92.1.
Love will be a much more challenging assignment for rookie cornerback Trey Amos. The Packers don’t have a deep threat on the level of Malik Nabors, but Love will be much more accurate than Russell Wilson, giving Amos a bigger challenge.
Bob Matthews is a 33 year veteran broadcast journalist, spending the last 29 years of his career in Virginia. Bob has covered both news and sports stories and for the last three seasons, the Washington Commanders. He looks forward to continuing to provide coverage to Sportsjourney.com both on the website and through his podcast, The Bob Matthews Show.
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