Atlanta’s first win of the season came through the two players Green Bay could least afford to lose track of. Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards, Drake London caught passes for another 194, and the Falcons beat the Packers 35–14 at Lambeau Field on Thursday night.
Michael Penix Jr.’s return gave Atlanta a more productive passing game, but the Falcons also controlled the line of scrimmage. They finished with 242 rushing yards to Green Bay’s 17 and held the ball for 37:05. After falling behind 7–0, Atlanta scored the next 27 points.
Both teams left at 1–2, having played a game that exposed very different problems. Atlanta showed how much its offence had been missing without its starting quarterback. Green Bay struggled to establish its running game and kept giving Atlanta’s best players room to work. [1]
Photo: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images · Source
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | 7 | 10 | 7 | 11 | 35 |
| Green Bay | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 14 |
First quarter: Green Bay wastes an opening, then Robinson answers
End of quarter: Falcons 7, Packers 7
Penix’s first possession ended with Xavier McKinney intercepting a throw over the middle. That handed Green Bay the ball near midfield and an immediate opportunity to put pressure on a quarterback returning from a torn ACL. The Packers gained no lasting advantage, punting after two incompletions followed a short completion to Tucker Kraft.
Green Bay’s next possession supplied the explosive play its opening series lacked. On third-and-11 from his own 12, Jordan Love found Matthew Golden for 45 yards. A later unnecessary-roughness penalty against Atlanta’s Harold Perkins Jr. helped the drive along, and Love finished it with a four-yard touchdown pass to Christian Watson. The nine-play, 87-yard possession put Green Bay ahead 7–0 with 5:13 remaining.
Atlanta’s reply nearly stalled after an intentional-grounding penalty. A personal foul against Brenton Cox Jr. instead gave the Falcons another first down, and Robinson immediately punished the reprieve with a 55-yard run. He finished the possession with a three-yard touchdown at 1:32, completing a seven-play, 85-yard response.
The distinction between those possessions mattered. Green Bay failed to convert its interception into points and later extended an Atlanta drive with a penalty. Robinson supplied the damage after the mistake, turning what could have been a defensive stop into a tie game. The Packers then went three-and-out, leaving their early touchdown as a promising sequence they would struggle to repeat. [2] [3]
Photo: Emma Pravecek/Packers.com · Source
Second quarter: A blocked kick becomes a ten-point halftime gap
Quarter scoring: Atlanta 10–0 · Halftime: Falcons 17, Packers 7
Atlanta did not score on its first possession of the quarter, but Green Bay again failed to move the ball after getting it back. The Falcons subsequently drove into field-goal range, and Nick Folk’s 44-yard kick gave them their first lead, 10–7, with 4:48 left.
The Packers had a quick opportunity to answer when Mike Hughes was penalised for pass interference on a deep attempt to Golden. The 34-yard penalty moved Green Bay to Atlanta’s 33. The drive produced only five more yards before two incompletions brought out Trey Smack for a 47-yard field-goal attempt.
Zach Harrison blocked it, preserving Atlanta’s three-point lead and giving Penix another possession with 3:42 remaining. The Falcons made that change of possession decisive. London caught passes of 20 and 16 yards on the ensuing drive, while Robinson helped move the ball inside the ten. After Zaire Franklin dropped Robinson for a loss, Penix found Austin Hooper for a five-yard touchdown on third-and-goal with 59 seconds left.
Green Bay had been attempting to tie the game at 10. Instead, Atlanta reached halftime ahead 17–7. The blocked kick should not be treated as a touchdown by itself: Penix and the offence still had to cover 63 yards, including a third-down conversion to London and the scoring throw to Hooper. That ability to finish the possession separated the teams.
The Packers’ final series of the half ended with another punt after a third-down incompletion intended for Kraft. Atlanta had now scored more points in this half than the 16 it managed across its first two games combined. [2] [4] [5]
Photo: Evan Siegle/Packers.com · Source
Third quarter: Green Bay’s best chance ends near the goal line
Quarter scoring: Atlanta 7–0 · End of quarter: Falcons 24, Packers 7
The Packers received the second-half kickoff and put together the drive they needed. Love completed passes to Jonnu Smith and Golden before finding Watson for 22 yards. A 12-yard completion to Skyy Moore helped take Green Bay inside Atlanta’s 20.
The possession then came down to fourth-and-one inside the ten. Trailing by ten, Matt LaFleur kept the offence on the field. Love’s play-action pass intended for Watson was incomplete, and the Falcons took over without conceding a point.
Going for the first down was defensible: a touchdown would have reduced the deficit to three and rewarded Green Bay’s most sustained possession since the opening quarter. The execution left Atlanta with the benefit of the stop. It also put the Packers’ defence back on the field with almost the entire length of the field available for the Falcons to use.
Atlanta drove 92 yards in ten plays, consuming 6:18. Bijan Robinson’s 31-yard run helped the Falcons escape the shadow of their own goal line. Later, Penix connected with London for 16 yards on third-and-seven. Brian Robinson Jr. finished the drive with a seven-yard touchdown run on third-and-one at 3:38.
That exchange was the game’s clearest turning point. A potential 17–14 contest became a 24–7 lead because Atlanta followed a red-zone stop with a full-field touchdown drive. Green Bay’s next possession reached Atlanta territory but ended in another punt, so the Packers entered the fourth quarter having gone two complete periods without scoring. [2] [6]
Photo: Kathryn Riley/Getty Images · Source
Fourth quarter: London stretches the field and Atlanta closes it out
Quarter scoring: Atlanta 11–7 · Final: Falcons 35, Packers 14
London delivered the quarter’s biggest gain with a 68-yard reception on third-and-two. A holding penalty helped prevent Atlanta from turning that possession into another touchdown, but Folk’s 31-yard field goal made it 27–7 with 10:57 remaining.
Green Bay finally answered. Watson’s 34-yard catch-and-run converted a third-and-ten, and the Packers later kept the possession alive with a fourth-down completion to Moore. Love found Golden for a 15-yard touchdown at 8:18, finishing a ten-play, 76-yard drive and reducing Atlanta’s lead to 27–14.
There was still time for a comeback if Green Bay could force a quick stop. Atlanta denied it one. Bijan Robinson converted third-and-two on the next possession, and London’s 40-yard reception took the Falcons deep into Packers territory. Robinson finished with a two-yard touchdown at 3:33, his second score of the night.
Penix then completed the two-point conversion to Chris Blair, making it 35–14. That choice had a clear scoring purpose: the conversion stretched a 19-point advantage to 21, leaving Green Bay needing three touchdowns and three extra points simply to draw level. The scoring drive had also removed 4:45 from the clock.
Love moved the Packers into the red zone once more before Xavier Watts intercepted him, ending the final threat. Golden finished with five receptions for 100 yards, including his first regular-season receiving touchdown, but most of Green Bay’s late production came after Atlanta had established a commanding lead. [2] [3] [7]
Photo: Evan Siegle/Packers.com · Source
Why Atlanta controlled the game
Atlanta’s advantage on the ground was too large for Green Bay’s passing totals to offset. Bijan Robinson averaged 6.7 yards on 29 carries. Brian Robinson added 50 yards on ten attempts, giving the two backs 244 yards before Penix’s two kneeldowns reduced the team total to 242. Green Bay’s nine rushing attempts produced 17 yards, leaving Love responsible for almost every meaningful offensive gain.
Love’s 312 passing yards therefore require context. He needed 53 attempts to reach them, completing 28, while Penix went 18-for-25 for 256 yards. Penix averaged 10.2 yards per attempt to Love’s 5.9. Atlanta was creating larger gains with fewer throws and could still run effectively when protecting its lead.
London was the central figure in that passing efficiency. He caught nine of ten targets for 194 yards, including the fourth-quarter gains of 68 and 40. Together, those two receptions accounted for 108 yards and helped produce scores on the possessions immediately surrounding Green Bay’s final touchdown.
The injury context belongs in the assessment. Green Bay entered without offensive linemen Aaron Banks and Zach Bako-Bewele, as well as receiver Jayden Reed. Those absences limited Green Bay’s options on offence. They do not account for a defence allowing nearly 500 yards or for the missed opportunities when the Packers did reach scoring range. [1] [8]
| Measure | Atlanta | Green Bay |
|---|---|---|
| Total offence | 498 yards | 328 yards |
| Rushing | 41 attempts, 242 yards | 9 attempts, 17 yards |
| Quarterback passing | Penix: 18/25, 256 yards | Love: 28/53, 312 yards |
| Passing TDs / interceptions | 1 / 1 | 2 / 1 |
| Third downs | 6/10 | 6/15 |
| Time of possession | 37:05 | 22:55 |
The stories around the score
A return that survived its first mistake
Penix was making his first NFL start since tearing his ACL on November 16, 2025. His opening interception gave the comeback an uncomfortable beginning, but it was his only turnover. Cooper Rush had started Atlanta’s first two games; Thursday showed what a healthy starter could make possible without requiring him to throw on every possession. [9]
A home-opener streak ends at 13
Green Bay entered with 13 consecutive home-opener victories, covering 2013 through 2025. That tied Miami’s 1976–88 run for the NFL record, according to the Packers’ pregame notes. Atlanta prevented Green Bay from taking sole possession of the mark in the first Thursday meeting between these franchises. [10]
The warning about Robinson was already on the record
Before the game, defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon described Robinson as a player who could “beat you multiple ways.” Green Bay had allowed only 174 rushing yards across its first two games, at 2.85 per carry. Bijan alone exceeded that two-game yardage total Thursday, while his 55-yard burst changed the first quarter and his 31-yard run helped turn the third-quarter stop into a touchdown drive. [11]
A milestone for Bijan and a familiar field for Blair
Robinson’s 213 yards from scrimmage also carried him past 6,000 for his career. FOX 5 Atlanta reported that he became the tenth NFL player to reach that mark before turning 25. Blair supplied a smaller connection to the evening’s setting: the receiver who caught Atlanta’s closing two-point conversion spent time on Green Bay’s practice squad in 2021. [12] [10]
One victory leaves Atlanta with work to do at 1–2, but the Falcons now have a performance they can try to reproduce. They protected Penix without conceding a sack and let their running game carry a substantial share of the offence. Green Bay leaves with the more urgent questions after a home opener in which both its running game and its run defence failed.
