Week 2 Test
The day is finally here. The highly anticipated home opener has finally arrived. This Sunday the Mercedes Benz stadium is finally open for Dirty Bird business, and it comes in a week 2 test against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. Coming off a rusty win in week 1 against the Bears, this is our third time playing the Packers this calendar year, both of which were victories, and one of them being a 44-21 win in the NFC Championship game. Beating Aaron Rodgers a third time will prove that we can really stomp with the big dogs and whether or not Matt Ryan deserves to be mentioned with the rest of the elite quarterbacks. *even though he's coming off an MVP season.
The key to this game is of course containing Aaron Rodgers when he decides leave the pocket, but our defensive backs also have to maintain coverage and our front 7 has remain disciplined on the pass rush. Our offense should be fine overall, considering that Green Bay's defense is below average. Hopefully this will be the game where Steve Sarkisan opens up the playbook and starts calling the more the explosive plays that we're used to seeing.
I'm expecting Matt Ryan to distribute the ball the way we're used to seeing, with a few big plays to Julio Jones, and number of explosive plays to Sanu, Gabriel, and whoever else is open. This would also be a great game for our running backs to break out, considering the fact that we only had 64 total rushing yards against the Bears in week 1. Maybe a few big runs by Devonta Freeman and some screen plays to Tevin Coleman.
With all of that being said, we still have to consider Aaron Rodgers ability to make things happen on field no matter what the situation is. I'm predicting this game to be somewhat a shootout, with the Falcons coming out on top... let's say, with a final score being somewhere close to maybe 35-28.
