27 unanswered points
Atlanta trailed 7-0 inside the first quarter at Lambeau Field on Thursday night and looked, for a few minutes, like the same team that had gone scoreless in the red zone through two weeks. Then the Falcons reeled off 27 straight points and left with a 35-14 win that had very little to do with survival and everything to do with a statement.
Michael Penix Jr. made his first start since tearing his ACL last November against Carolina. He threw an early interception, then settled into 18-of-25 passing for 256 yards and a touchdown. Bijan Robinson did the rest, piling up 194 rushing yards and two scores on a 55-yard burst that broke the game open.
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A number Lambeau had not seen before
Robinson’s night paired with Drake London’s, and the combination produced something Green Bay’s home ground has apparently never hosted: two teammates from the same visiting team each clearing 150 yards from scrimmage in a single game there. London finished with nine catches for 194 yards. Between them, Atlanta’s two most dangerous weapons combined for 388 yards, more than the Packers managed as a team on offense for most of the second half.
Atlanta also won the ground game by a landslide, outrushing Green Bay 242-17, a gap that explains why the Packers’ offense, built around Jordan Love’s arm, never found the balance to keep pace even after Love threw for 312 yards and two touchdowns of his own.
A first for Green Bay in 14 years
The result drops Green Bay to a home-opener loss for the first time since 2012, snapping a 13-game winning streak in season openers at Lambeau. Injuries up front did not help, with starters Aaron Banks and Zach Bako-Bewele both unavailable. For Atlanta, the calculus is simpler: backup Cooper Rush had opened the season 0-2 with an offense that could not reach the red zone, and Penix’s return changed the equation in a single half. Both teams sit at 1-2 through three weeks, but only one of them looked like a different team by the final whistle.
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