The Packers are favourites for this game with good reason. The trade for Micah Parsons in the off-season has improved their defense hugely, and this looks like a team poised for a deep play-off run. They also impressed more than the Commanders in Week One, despite both teams winning, with the Packers' confident win over a Lions team, really cementing their status as a team to watch. They’re stacked with quality on both sides of the ball and have elite coaching, too.

Despite all of that, this is a Commanders team who are very dangerous, and in Jayden Daniels, they have a true star. In his rookie season, he showed an incredible skill to get his team over the line when it mattered. The Packers really should win this one, but Daniels does scare me enough that I’m not confident with the current spread of Packers -3.5. Instead, because I’m mindful of the threat that Washington possesses, I want to play it extra safe, so I’m taking the Packers +1.5 points.

Jayden Reed was limited in practice during the week but is expected to suit up on Thursday night for the Packers. There were doubts around his fitness last week and he was still in action, so we should expect similar again. Reed caught three of his five targets for 45 yards and a touchdown on Sunday and is an important piece on this offense.

Reed has had 30+ receiving yards in five of his past six games and should be on course to do the same again on Thursday Night Football, despite the Commanders’ defense. The Commanders were one of the league’s best teams against the pass last season and only gave up 157 yards through the air against the Giants last time out. That said, they still gave up 71 yards to Malik Nabers and 55 to Wan’Dale Robinson, so the yardage is there to be taken, and with Reed being essential to Jordan Love’s ability to move the chains, he should continue to get a lot of targets.

When it comes to backing an Anytime Touchdown there’s only one man I can put my faith in, and that’s the Packers’ running back Josh Jacobs. The 27-year-old is a key part of Green Bay’s offense and has been since arriving from the Raiders in the ’24 off-season. He gets a lot of volume in this offense and recorded 19 carries in the win over the Lions, racking up 66 yards on the ground.

What’s most important is his ability to find the end zone, and we saw him open his season with a touchdown in that win. Impressively, that was his 10th straight game scoring a touchdown, a run that takes him back to Week Nine of last season. He scored a total of 17 times last season and should be looking at similar numbers this year, too.

Jacory Croskey-Merritt, who has asked to be known as Bill, was one of the breakout stories from training camps across the NFL this summer. Bill was drafted in the seventh round from Arizona in April, and in truth, not much was expected of him. Then, when training camps started, there was a huge buzz around both his ability and work rate.

The Commanders then traded lead running back Brian Robinson to the 49ers in the run-up to the season, which further fed the hype. It’s not often that seventh-round running backs forge special NFL careers, but Bill looks like a player who could be an exception. He led his team with 82 rushing yards on just 10 carries against the Giants, a mind-blowing average of 8.2 yards per carry, as well as scoring a touchdown. The Packers will be far better at stopping the run, but I’m taking a very conservative alternate rushing yard line of 30+ that he really should cover.