00:00Welcome back to the Mercedes-Benz Post Game Show on the Atlanta Falcons Radio Network.
00:04Grant McCauley and former Falcon Mike Johnson from our network studios in Midtown Atlanta.
00:08It's a late night. We're going to burn the midnight oil tonight, but we've got a lot of good stuff
00:11to keep us warm
00:12and talk about when it comes to this one, and it won't be a cold and dark 0-3 start
00:17for the Falcons.
00:18No, no, no. It was the exact opposite up at Lambeau Field.
00:21A demonstrative, season-altering win, in my opinion.
00:24I don't think that I'm going out on a limb there, not a very shaky limb anyway.
00:27By the way, this was the kind of game that you had certainly hoped to see
00:32when you thought about the 2026 Atlanta Falcons, and I don't know that I necessarily expected it
00:37right out of the gates in the first game back from Michael Penix,
00:40but boy, did he deliver a different kind of football than we had seen in the first two weeks, Mike.
00:45Yeah, and I don't want to speak in hyperbole. I don't want to get too far out over my skis.
00:49I think you're spot on. It's a season-altering win.
00:53In week three, which is a crazy thing to say. I get it.
00:55It could be bigger than that, Grant. That's a win that rescues every possibility that you have
01:01in front of you as far as Michael Penix, as far as Kevin Stefanski, as far as the way you
01:07look
01:07at this entire regime change that we have seen over the last eight months, right?
01:12If you lose this game, you start looking at the schedule, you start wondering about
01:16Michael Penix's future, you start hearing rumbles of Tua, and you continue to hear about
01:20Jack Strand and every other thing that comes along with that.
01:22And yet, you go up and deal with business. Not only deal with it and get a win,
01:27but it's the way in which you won.
01:29The demanding, tough, rugged style with which you went up to Lambeau and got a victory.
01:33Now, all of a sudden, Michael Penix keeps playing like this, like he's the guy.
01:38Now, all of a sudden, that first-round draft pick you have next year,
01:41that goes to supplementing what he is.
01:43Now, all of a sudden, Kevin Stefanski has his quarterback, which he's never had as a head coach,
01:47and you start building around that.
01:48So, you're spot on. It's a big win for this season. It might even be bigger than that, honestly,
01:53when you look at the totality of it.
01:54Yeah, and we're going to hear from Kevin Stefanski here shortly, and this was his first win
01:58as the Atlanta head coach. And look, and I know he talked about this, and I believe he was asked
02:03about it as Atlanta's quarterback situation became a bigger and bigger question that he had to deal
02:08with week after week after week through the preseason and right on into the first couple of weeks
02:11of the regular season. It is nothing new to him because he dealt with this whole thing in Cleveland
02:15a year ago, but I'm sure he was hoping for a little bit different launch here in Atlanta.
02:21But finally, the Falcons were able to get the true version of this team that they wanted to have
02:26out there, whether it was going to be Tua Tungvaloa to start the season that didn't work out,
02:30whether it's going to be the return of Michael Penix here in week three or week four,
02:33whatever the plan was, doesn't really matter at this point.
02:35It's all just kind of hindsight and all in the rearview mirror at this point
02:40because it's full steam ahead. And Michael Penix has given the Falcons and a Falcons fan
02:45certainly an opportunity to feel a little bit better about this team. And as you just said,
02:49the direction of this team here in 2026 as well, as I mentioned with the Packers,
02:54they had not lost a home opener since 2012 and only lost two of those in the last 20 years
02:59before Atlanta throttled the Falcons. And I did want to take just a slight second to ask you if you
03:04heard in the broadcast, the ATL chance that we're picking up in the third quarter,
03:08because that is not a thing I expected to hear at Lebo Field.
03:12Yeah, I'm with you. They did a good job with the camera crew, finding those Falcons fans in the
03:15crowd, making sure you saw the rise up banners and everything else. And that just feels good,
03:19man. I've mentioned this a number of times. I think it was two years ago, Kansas City comes to
03:23town. You play a primetime game Thursday night or Sunday night. I can't remember. And I thought the
03:27Falcons were as good then as they've ever been. And when you have a good product on the field and
03:30you
03:31can travel and go to places like this, Falcons fans are just, they're great. And so I think that,
03:35you know, a lot of the boos you heard last week can kind of be washed away. And I think
03:39that the
03:39team dealt with it very, very well. I hope that the fan base kind of gets on with what, you
03:44know,
03:44version of this team we're seeing right now. And they have no reason not to, you know, that it's,
03:48it's a special group, but just excited about the product they put on the field and excited about,
03:53you know, what we saw from Michael Penix tonight. It just feels like the possibilities are really
03:58wide open in terms of what this, this team can do over the next few weeks.
04:01Most certainly the Falcons have a totally different view than they had just four days
04:05ago. Let's head back up to Lambeau Field. Let's hear from head coach, Kevin Stefanski with our
04:09own Dave Archer. Our visit with coach Stefanski brought to you by Mercedes-Benz, the official
04:12luxury vehicle of your Atlanta Falcons. Here's Dave with the Falcons head coach who just got his
04:16first win as a Falcon.
04:18Stand alongside our head football coach, Kevin Stefanski. Kev, pretty, pretty complete performance
04:23tonight. Yeah, really proud of the guys, you know, short week coming off a tough one at home.
04:28And we needed to respond as a football team and we did. And so I'm proud of those guys.
04:32Your quarterback got a chance to get on the field for the first time since last year.
04:36What'd you think about Mike?
04:37Yeah, really proud of Mike. I've said it all week and I've said it the whole time, you know,
04:41we've been together just how hard he has worked to get back. And I get to see a lot of
04:45that work
04:46and, you know, it's, it's just tough, tough weight room, training room. It's not, there's not real glory
04:51in it, but man, what he put himself through to get back. And then, you know, like anything,
04:55you're going to be rusty, but I really was proud of how he played. It's fun to watch your,
04:59your offensive line and tight ends and running backs dictate the terms of the game with Green
05:04Bay's defense. That's a good defense. I had a lot of good guys on that side of the ball.
05:07You guys dictated terms. Yeah. You know, we, we had some opportunities in the run game.
05:11I thought we took advantage of some things. I thought Tommy called a great game. And then
05:15anytime you can put the ball in, in Bajon and Brian's hands and they have a downhill head of steam.
05:20Our guys are moving people off the ball. It was fun to watch.
05:22I think I counted five, three and outs for your defense. They did a heck of a job. That's a,
05:26that's a guy you talked about how much you would respect Jordan Love. Yeah. And, and that offensive
05:30attack, the whole attack, they got guys on the perimeter. Um, we harassed the quarterback all
05:34night and, and stopped the run. I mean, 17 yards given up. So really proud of that, of that effort.
05:39Tone setter, your, your special teams unit? Without a doubt. I mean, that's a great returner
05:44and Sky Moore coverage units were outstanding. They had to be. And I just think our special teams is the
05:49tip
05:49of the spear. If you're going to play complimentary ball, you got to play great on special teams.
05:52Congratulations. Thanks, Arch. Appreciate you.
05:54That was head coach Kevin Stefanski again. First win with the Atlanta Falcons for him. Atlanta now
05:59one and two on the season. Green Bay also now one and two on the season. I heard something there
06:04that
06:04I really loved and that was harassing the quarterback all night. We're going to talk about the offense
06:08all night, but we do need to, you know, flip the, uh, the page over, flip the coin over and
06:12talk a
06:13little bit about the, the prevention that we saw, uh, the point prevention from this Atlanta defense,
06:18because that unit certainly played well and it was not an easy night for Jordan Love. And there
06:22was absolutely no help to be found with a Green Bay ground game. I mean, they could not get
06:26anything going. No. And I think it bears mentioning once again, the injuries they did have up front
06:31back. Bacobwele was out. Anthony Belton started at right, uh, tackle Aaron banks. The left guard
06:37was out from last week and his replacement during last week's game against the jets was Donovan
06:42Jennings. He got hurt against the jets. So you saw Jagger Burton, the rookie out of Kentucky,
06:47the fifth round pick making his NFL, uh, debut at left guard tonight. And they looked that way.
06:52I mean, let's just put it what it is. That's, that's a really tough turnaround to be missing
06:57two starters on your offensive line in a short week. And I thought that it was up to, uh, you
07:02know, Atlanta's defensive line. You can say it all you want to, but until you go out there and
07:05actually put it in place and take advantage of those matchups, you don't know what you're going to
07:08get. And so I thought that that was really well done by Jeff Ulbrich and company. And you could tell
07:13as the game went on and the Darius Smith and Cameron Smith, and some of these other players
07:18started understanding the tendencies, that offensive line and getting an obvious passing
07:23downs, they were able to, like he said, harass the quarterback and really get a lot of things
07:27done. Yeah. I mean, it didn't show up necessarily in the sack total. This wasn't one of those games
07:30you'll look back at the box score and be like, Oh good at five, six, seven, eight, nine sacks,
07:34whatever, what have you, some kind of like banner evening, but it just did not seem like at any
07:38time that Jordan love was particularly comfortable with what was going on. And to your point,
07:42if you've got a destabilized offensive line, that's going to be something that you're basically
07:46going to have not in the back of your mind, but the front of your mind when you're doing
07:49everything. I mean, it's almost an impossible ask for a quarterback to have consistency when
07:55you have that much around you. That's just flat out different. Yeah. I always go back to
07:58Matt Ryan's press conference when he was named the president of football. And it's actually,
08:04he might've actually said this when he introduced Kevin's fancy as the head coach, but they talked
08:07about what they wanted the football team to look like. And Matt mentioned multiple times in that
08:11press conference. The best thing for him as a quarterback, as they try to identify one
08:15was to be able to turn around and hand the ball off to Michael Turner. You saw two quarterbacks
08:19tonight, one that had a run game, one that did not Jordan love did not have a running game where
08:25he could turn around and hand it off. Josh Jacobs is not part of what they're trying to get done.
08:28And so they abandoned it. And, um, that's what happens when you have a one-sided offense.
08:32You're not going to really have a clean pocket. Most times they did not. And hats off to our
08:36defensive front for getting it done. Dan, what you saw was really a one-sided game for most of this
08:41one. Packers scored early. They scored late, but the Falcons put up 35 points in this one,
08:46including 27 unanswered to take that commanding lead into the fourth quarter before the Packers
08:50finally found their way back into the end zone. And again, Atlanta still had an answer for that.
08:54This was just a game that was dominated by the Atlanta Falcons. I don't know what you expected
08:58coming into this one. I'm not sure what I expected coming into this one, but certainly,
09:02uh, what a difference four days makes for what the Atlanta Falcons and everyone associated with
09:07the Atlanta Falcons is able to discuss coming out of this one, a huge one on Thursday night,
09:11football 35, 14. We'll continue breaking it down here on the Mercedes-Benz post game show
09:15on the Atlanta Falcons radio network.
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