SAVANT DAILY ANALYSIS
NFL Preseason: Green Bay Packers ML 1U
@ 7:00 PM ET, Acrisure Stadium
Preseason games get decided in the second half by whichever team actually wants it, and only one of these two showed up to want it. Mike McCarthy has never pretended to care about August. His Dallas teams went 4 and 9 in the preseason across their final four seasons, scored 17 or fewer points in seven of those games, and averaged just 19.1 points. Now he is handing Pittsburgh's entire second half to Will Howard, a 2025 sixth-round pick taken 185th overall, with rookie Drew Allar (76th overall in 2026) getting the second quarter, while Aaron Rodgers does not play a snap. Green Bay is the opposite operation. Matt LaFleur treats the preseason as live reps, Jordan Love opens behind a real skill group in Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and MarShawn Lloyd, and once the starters exit the offense runs through Tyrod Taylor, a quarterback with 15 years of NFL experience. That is the whole edge. A veteran-run team playing to win against a development camp built on two rookie quarterbacks. Yahoo's own projection lands Packers 21, Steelers 17. You do not need a cover, a backdoor, or a key number. You need Green Bay to be the more serious team for four quarters, and they are the only one that came to be.
Confidence: HIGH
Allocation: 1U
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