There are certain early-season losses, even hefty ones, that you can write off. Especially if they happen overseas or on a Thursday night, where good teams can be afflicted by all sorts of rest/recovery issues that throw them off-balance. But man, if you are a Green Bay Packers fan, I'm not sure how you even begin to cope with what happened last night.
The Packers lost to Falcons—the same Falcons who lost their first two games to the Steelers and Panthers by a combined score of 54-16 and did not have a red-zone snap in either of those games—by a score of 35-14. This wasn't one of those games where the bad team wins by multiple scores thanks to fluky turnovers or special teams play, either. This was the Falcons, the Atlanta damn Falcons, the bozos with no good quarterbacks and an inability to get a first down, just destroying the Packers on their own field.
Atlanta finished the game with 498 total yards, and gained 7.5 yards per play. Bijan Robinson ran for 194 yards on 29 carries. Michael Penix, with his non-functional knees and a general lack of quarterbacking skills, spent his first start of the season just pumping the ball to Drake London, who finished with nine receptions for 194 yards. Kyle Pitts didn't do jack shit.
The Packers, meanwhile, couldn't do anything on offense. Josh Jacobs's banishment to the exempt list has left them relying on MarShawn Lloyd and Kaleb Johnson at running back. They combined for eight carries and 17 yards last night. Jordan Love was forced to throw the ball 53 times, and completed just 28 of those throws due in part to how much pressure the Falcons' front seven was putting on him. I suppose that's at least understandable, given that Atlanta does have a fearsome pass rush—wait, sorry, I'm being reminded that James Pierce Jr., Jalon Walker, and Samson Ebukam did not play in this game. Yes, it's being explained to me now that the Packers' offensive line is so bad that they were unable to keep Divine Deablo, Cameron Thomas, and Brandon Dorlus away from their quarterback.
Are you ready for the depressing postgame quotes? Here's Packers head coach Matt LaFleur just kind of throwing his hands up at a team that is an Aaron Glenn brain fart away from having started the season with three humiliating losses: "I think we've got to continue to work with these guys and try to figure out what we do well, because right now I don't know what we're doing well offensively."
Here's Tucker Kraft, throwing something approaching a tantrum at the fact that his team was booed off the field at the end of their home opener:
"Like everyone pictures Lambeau Field and not boos. I don't picture boos. I picture my home stadium. That's tough. It's pretty disappointing. Especially for a home opener. It's pretty disappointing. It's not going to help us win. Like, I don't know what people think that's going to rally us or something like that. But that's—we're grown men. We're mentally strong enough, capable enough to get back on the field and play ball. But it'd probably be much easier with the 70,000 people behind us rather than opposing us."
For his part, Love insisted that there remains "a lot of ball out there in front of us," and reminded reporters of how badly the 2023 season started before the Packers rallied to finish 9-8 and win a playoff game. Such meager expectations are supposed to be in these Packers' past. This is a team that announced its designs on the Super Bowl by trading for Micah Parsons last season. I suppose you can't fully judge them until Parsons gets back on the field, but in the meantime here's a sharp axe to dangle over the heads of any Packers fans in your life: If the Packers keep playing like this, they'll be sending the Cowboys a top 10 pick next spring.
