Injuries plague multiple teams as records even out once again

Football is weird. A week after the Panthers gave up 59 points to the Bears, they hold the Falcons to 3 points and 157 yards on the ground. The week after that, the Falcons put up 35 points on the Packers and racked up 242 yards on the ground, en route to 498 total yards (they didn’t punt after the first drive of the second quarter) and a huge win on Thursday night that came on a short week with some interesting inspiration.

Atlanta’s defense held the Packers to a mere 17 yards on the ground, and pressured Jordan Love on 41.8 percent of his drop-backs.

“Had to be resilient on a short week,” said coach Kevin Stefanski. “I thought we were. And then very, very proud of the complementary ball that was out there. It starts with our special teams. I thought we covered kicks really well, and then just feeding off of each other. Our defense gets a huge stop there in the second half, in the third quarter, and our offense goes 90 (yards).

“It didn’t put the game away by any stretch of the imagination, but it just showed that’s something we can do, take the ball, whether it’s by turnover on downs or otherwise, and go score a touchdown. I’m proud overall of the effort. It counts as one, and we’ve got to get back at it next week.”

There are a lot of reasons the Falcons were able to put together a fantastic, dominating performance, but every conversation is going to start with Michael Penix Jr.’s return. The quarterback made his first appearance since suffering a partial ACL tear in Week 11 last season, and went 18-of-25 for 256 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. He is the fastest quarterback in Falcons franchise history to reach 3,000-plus passing yards (did so in 13 starts).