Green Bay Packers at Washington Redskins: 5 matchups to watch

2. Green Bay O-Line vs Washington D-Line

The strength of the Washington defense is their front five. Their edge rushers and defensive line are a stout group, but the Packers offensive line showed some development last week against one of the better defensive lines in football in Minnesota. When healthy, David Bakhtiari and Bryan Bulaga are one of the best pairs of tackles in the NFL, particularly in pass-blocking. If they slow down Ryan Kerrigan and Preston Smith, this game will be over early.

Up the middle, things could be a bit different. Justin McCray has shown flashes, but he’s been extremely inconsistent. Lane Taylor has been the best of the interior linemen, but he still has some progress to make. The Redskins have invested a ton of draft capital in their defensive line, and they can cause some issues if they play up to their potential. The main area they can cause problems is in the run game.

Green Bay has had issues running the ball so far this season, and this week could continue those struggles. Jonathan Allen will be across from Taylor, who will likely be on an island with Bakhtiari taking the edge rusher across from him. Rodgers needs to protect his knee as much as possible, and the offensive line can do that. If Rodgers gets hit just the wrong way, his injury could get much worse.