Here they go again
Packers-Falcons III tonight at the Benz
ATLANTA — This is becoming a bit of a rivalry.
When the Atlanta Falcons (1-0) host the Green Bay Packers (1-0) tonight, it will be both an early indicator of the NFC’s current balance of power as well as the third meeting between the teams — all of them in Atlanta — in less than 11 months.
This one will be at a new venue, the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which replaced the soon-to-be-demolished Georgia Dome. The Falcons, coming off a lackluster opener at Chicago, will play a regular-season game in their new home for the first time. Green Bay’s latest trek south comes after beating Seattle last week at Lambeau Field.
“We’ve seen a lot of them,” Falcons defensive end Brooks Reed said, breaking into a smile. “I’m sure they’re sick of coming down here. But we like it.”
Last season, the teams first met in the eighth week, with the Falcons coming off two straight excruciating losses. Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers threw four touchdown passes, the last of which put Green Bay ahead with just less than four minutes remaining. But Atlanta avoided a third straight loss when Matt Ryan countered with an 11-yard scoring pass to Mohamed Sanu with 31 seconds remaining, pulling out a 33-32 victory.
Both teams went on to make the playoffs, and Green Bay knocked off top-seeded Dallas to set up a rematch with the Falcons in the NFC championship game. That one was a blowout for Atlanta, which raced out to a 24-0 halftime lead and cruised to a 44-21 triumph on the way to just its second Super Bowl appearance.
Rodgers said he’s not thinking about last season.
“It’s past,” he said. “You can’t rewrite history. It’s just two 1-0 teams who both think we can be there at the end of the season. These are the type of games, like last week, that you win these games and you feel better in December and January when you’re coming down to filling out that 12-team bracket.”
While downplaying talk of a budding rivalry, Falcons safety Ricardo Allen acknowledged that any game against the Packers carries a little extra juice.
“We do play each other a lot, and we’re two really good teams,” he said. “Even though we’ve won the last two games, man, we go into these weeks with a lot of respect for then. We know what kind of team this is. We know we have to come with our ‘A’ game every time. This is a team you have to play championship football against.”
Some of the opposing players are even more familiar with each other. First cousins Clay and Jake Matthews figure to see plenty of each other. Clay is moving around again from the outside linebacker position and playing a key role in Green Bay’s pass rush, while Jake is responsible for protecting Ryan’s blind side at the crucial left tackle spot.
“Clay is back to his traditional role as pass rusher, so there will be some family-on-family crime there,” Atlanta coach Dan Quinn joked.