The Atlanta Falcons beat the Green Bay Packers 34-23 Sunday to improve to 2-0. The Packers, who topped the Seattle Seahawks 17-9 last week, fell to 1-1 on the year.
Atlanta’s offense looked every bit like the touchdown machine that led the league with 540 points a year ago. Quarterback Matt Ryan threw for 252 yards and one touchdown in the game. Of those yards, 201 came in the first half, the AP notes, before the Falcons turned to Devonta Freeman and the rest of their rushing attack to ice a 24-7 halftime lead.
Freeman rushed for 84 yards and two touchdowns on the game. Tevin Coleman contributed 42 rushing yards and caught a touchdown pass. Atlanta’s running game as a whole accounted for 142 yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries (5.3 yards per carry).
After receiving the opening kickoff, the Falcons drove 86 yards in nine plays. Ryan was 3-3 with 59 yards on the drive. Seventh-year wideout Julio Jones caught two passes for 53 yards.
Jones caught five passes for 108 yards on the game. He said following the contest, per the AP: “We came out aggressive. We did a great job and got after them.”
The Green Bay offense, despite playing without two starting tackles, and losing wide receiver Jordy Nelson early in the game with a quadriceps injury (Nelson started, but a pass never came his way), came out strong as well. They pieced together a 75-yard drive punctuated by a one-yard rushing touchdown courtesy of running back Ty Montgomery, who started with the team as a receiver in 2015 before moving to the backfield the following year.
Montgomery recorded 16 yards on four carries on the drive and caught a delivery from Rodgers for 23 yards. Rodgers went 4-5 with 40 yards.
So, with just under four minutes to play in the opening quarter, it looked like the game might live up to its billing as a battle of high-powered offenses. As time went on though, the contest looked more and more like a repeat of last year’s NFC championship game, in which the Falcons built a 31-0 lead over Green Bay early in the third quarter and rolled to a 44-21 victory to punch their ticket to Houston for the Super Bowl.
After the teams traded three and outs, Ryan engineered a 10-play, 87-yard drive that culminated with a two-yard touchdown run. Sanu caught two passes for 48 yards on the series.
The Falcons led 14-7 after Matt Bryant’s extra point. They never trailed again.
Bryant kicked his 200th career field goal with 3:27 remaining in the first half to extend the Falcons lead to 17-7. With the kick, he became the only kicker in history to record 200 field goals in an Atlanta uniform, the AP notes.
The 42-year-old veteran has been with the Falcons for the last nine of his 16 seasons in the NFL.
With just over a minute a minute remaining in the first half, the Packers committed three penalties in four plays—one of the flags was a disputed offensive pass interference call— and found themselves facing second and 12 from their own three.
Rodgers lofted a wobbly pass three yards past intended receiver Geronimo Allison. Atlanta cornerback Desmond Trufant sprinted to corral the interception, then fell out of bounds at Green Bay’s 36.
With 40 seconds remaining in the half, Ryan ran for eight yards, then completed three consecutive passes. The first was a 21-yard connection with Sanu that brought the Falcons to the Green Bay seven. The last was a three-yard dish to Coleman in the end zone.
The Falcons carried a 24-7 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The Packers received the kickoff to start the second half. On the second play from scrimmage, Falcons defensive end Vic Beasley broke through the pocket and stripped the ball from Rodgers. Trufant picked it up off the grass and carried it 15 yards to the end zone, recording his second takeaway of the game and the second touchdown of his career.
Bryant added a field goal later in the quarter, and the Falcons led 34-7 as time wound down in quarter three.
Every Atlanta fan in the sell-out crowd at the team’s new home, Mercedes Benz Stadium, along with tens of thousands of other Falcons fans watching elsewhere, held their breath. The game had looked so much like last year’s NFC Championship that there was reason to believe the fourth quarter might look like that of last year’s Super Bowl, in which the Falcons blew a 19-point lead.
Atlanta drained the clock with handoffs to Freeman. He recorded 31 yards on nine carries (3.4 yards per carry) in the quarter. Coleman took his tenth handoff but did not gain a yard.
Meanwhile, Ryan threw just four passes, completing three for 35 yards.
On the other side of the ball, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was making history and mounting something of a comeback. On fourth and seven, with 12:50 remaining, he found Davante Adams for a 33-yard touchdown, bringing the Packers within 18 before a failed two-point conversion try.
Then, Rodgers led the Packers 85 yards in eight plays, completing seven out of seven passes, the last of which was the 300th touchdown delivery of his career. The Packers inched to within 11 with just under six minutes to play.
According to ESPN, Rodgers reached the 300-touchdown milestone faster than any quarterback in history. He is the only player to reach the mark before throwing 100 interceptions.
But, any hopes Rodgers had of beating the Falcons with a Brady-esque comeback evaporated after Atlanta ran nine plays over the course of four minutes and 49 seconds to seal the win. Freeman took five handoffs, Coleman took another, and Ryan completed three out of three passes, each of which netted in excess of ten yards.
Freeman and company recorded three times as many rush yards as Green Bay did. But, the Packers edged the Falcons in first downs (24-19), total yards (367-364) and time of possession. Rodgers recorded nearly 100 more pass yards than Ryan did. (Rodgers also threw almost twice as many balls, for Atlanta adopted a run-heavy attack late in the game).
The landmark, landslide victory was the Falcons’ housewarming party for their new stadium, a $1.5-billion structure which was filled to its 71,000-person capacity for the affair. Sunday’s game was the first sporting event for which the stadium’s retractable roof was open.
Beasley, 2016’s sack leader, left Sunday’s contest with a torn hamstring and could miss as much as a month.
On their first defensive series, Green Bay lost defensive tackle Mike Daniels to a hamstring injury.
Nelson left the game during the Packers’ first offensive series, but the 32-year old was able to use the stationary bike on the sidelines later, SportingNews reports.
Packers wideout Randall Cobb sustained a shoulder injury in the fourth quarter.
The team has said it believes Daniels’, Nelson’s, and Cobb’s injuries are all relatively minor, but as of Monday night, Green Bay has yet to release an official report.
The Packers will host the winless Cincinnati Bengals at Lambeau next Sunday. The Falcons will travel to Detroit to face the 1-0 Detroit Lions, who will meet the Giants at the Meadowlands this Monday night.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
