Falcons-Packers W3 TNF Recap: Bijan Robinson Is Must-See TV

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3:09Wow. That was Wes Durham on the call. Uh, wow. Okay. We've got a stunner on Thursday night football. Welcome to Week 3, everybody. Welcome to our postgame show after the Week 3 TNF. Falcons beating the brakes off the Packers 35-14 at Lambeau Field. Bajon Robinson or Bajon, I've heard it both ways. Over 200 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns. Thanks for being here, friends. In place of Greg Rosenthal, who has legitimate family obligations this evening. Far more significant than talking this game. My name is Andrew Siciliano, also short, also with black hair, also working from home today. And on the other side of the screen, also a Guardians fan.

3:57Yes. Yes. Nick Shook, back at the First Questing Podcast studio. How the hell are you, man?

4:03Nick Shook:Fantastic, and I am stunned. I'm absolutely stunned by what we saw in this game. A Falcons team that was all but lifeless through the first two weeks, and especially in week two, comes out and kind of like the call described, detonates the Green Bay Packers, and they do it in a throwback physical way. And we have so much to discuss about this game. So Kevin Stefanski, and I told you this earlier on the NFL Report on the NFL Channel at 7 o 'clock Eastern time, Kevin Stefanski never loses on a short week, three days rest on Thursday night. But those games are usually, and I'm not kidding, he's undefeated, those games are almost exclusively at home over the Steelers, and Mike Tomlin's only won once in his last eight years going to Cleveland.

4:49That's how Kevin wins these games, not to take it away from him. He's a heck of a coach. This was so much different, however. This was going on the road with a team that had not yet run a play in the red zone. Going on the road, and no one's getting fired week three on a brand-new contract, but with the heat shook, the heat in Atlanta already ratcheted up, Drake London caught yelling at fans in the stands last week in Atlanta for the home opener when they couldn't stop the Panthers and Carolina ran up the score again. And the quarterback disaster that was Cooper Rush and Jack Strand and Tua not ready and Panics wasn't ready.

5:31Wait, he could be ready on Monday when they announce he's the starter tonight, but he wasn't ready on Sunday. Why couldn't he be ready on Sunday? Let me tell you, it was getting late early for Kevin Stefanski, not saying he was fired. But holy heck, it was hot in Atlanta for a town that candidly isn't a big pro sports town. And they care about other things right now, like the Braves in the playoffs. And maybe they do the Falcons or the Georgia game this weekend. Then maybe they do the Falcons. For Kevin to go on the road and do this, we'll get to the Packers in a second. For him to go on the road and win, not just win, not just like eke out a game, but to beat the brakes off the Packers, I did not see that coming.

6:11Nick Shook:No, I don't think any of us did. He had one lifeline when you described that entire scenario, the seat that was so hot for Kevin Stefanski after just two games. His one lifeline was a quarterback coming off of an ACL injury who hadn't really participated fully in most practices until about the last week or so. Yes, he was starting to participate in 11-on-11 near the end of the preseason, but he still wasn't close enough to being ready to play. now he comes in short week and you think is Michael Penix really going to change this much of this offense well as it turns out the one thing we know about the Atlanta Falcons is that Bajon Robinson is one of the best players in football and he is the center of their offense and he was the engine that drove this group tonight and you got to give a lot of credit to Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Tommy Reese because the way that they set up this game was let's try to make this as easy as possible for Michael Penix and we do that by leaning on the screen, soften up the defense, try to lean on Bajon, see where we can go with this.

7:08Nick Shook:And at first it was disastrous. He throws an interception on his opening drive, but they get a quick stop. They get the ball back and they're able to start to get to work. And by halftime, we're looking at a 17 to seven Falcons lead. And then they just pour it on and they poured on with the ground game, which is a throwback to Stefanski's days when he was leaning on Nick Chubb with the Browns and the scheme was hitting, except he's got two backs that can do it now with Robinson and Brian Robinson, who also chipped in 10 carries for 50 yards and a touchdown. It was so lopsided and such a stunning result because it was the same team that just got obliterated in their home opener by the Carolina Panthers and couldn't do anything offensively the week before.

7:47Nick Shook:And not to take anything away from Michael Penix, who ended up settling in and playing well, but it was a total team victory. It was the ground game. It was getting Drake London involved. It was Penix settling in and firing it downfield. And it was the defense absolutely suffocating a Packers offense that has no running game to speak of. It's one of the wins, I think, in Kevin Stavancy's career, outside of what he did at the peak of his success with the Browns, that he can be most proud of, given the adversity that he faced when he ended this game and how they've got to be feeling when they get back on that plane back to Atlanta tonight.

8:16And there was such a Browns feel to it. And for the record, this helmet back here is a Jim Brown helmet, but that is a Syracuse helmet. Note the old-school gray face mask here. But there was a Browns feel to it with, obviously, Tommy Reese, calm plays, Alex Fempelt, Bill Callahan on the sideline as assistants. Although Callahan was upstairs, I think. And then Austin Hooper catching a touchdown. I mean, this was the total Browns feels. But to your point, it did not start well. I'm driving home. I had to stop at the grocery store, get something to eat before I, you know, plant it on the couch. And full disclosure, I have the pregame for Westwood one for the football game on my phone.

8:58and then coming to the radio, I have Tom Hamilton and the Guardians here as they try to wrap up a playoff spot. So I'm pulling into the grocery store, and I totally missed the interception. I was like, wait, what? Wait, wait, I didn't get home in time for kickoff, and he threw a pick already? Eric Roberts, play the pick. Green Bay's 49, no score. Penix from the pocket, looks, shoots it, middle of the field, intercepted. Ball is picked off, it's Xavier McKinney, the seventh-year safety from Alabama. So McKinney takes the interception from Michael Penix to kill Atlanta's opening drive. What's crazy, Shook, is how bad he looked in the first quarter.

9:37It's not crazy that he looked bad. As you said, he barely practiced, right? It had been since November of last year. It's his third ACL. Let's face it, before he got hurt last year, it's not exactly like he was, Penix that is, setting the world on fire. He started so poorly. but the panics we saw in the first quarter, short arming balls to the sideline, skittish in the pocket, getting picked off there, was the exact 180 of the panics that we saw later.

10:05Nick Shook:Yeah, it was one of those turnarounds that you could have never seen coming if you had only watched that first two possessions. Like, when he throws that interception, tip of the cap to Xavier McKinney, one of the defensive backs, one of the best noses for the football in the NFL, reads the play well, but it's panics basically in the pocket looking around and thinking, my progression takes me here. This is where I should throw it. I see a window, but that window is slammed shut by McKinney. It looked like just rust. It looked like somebody who hadn't played at an NFL speed in a long time. If you took that snapshot, the interception thrown just a minute 30 into the game, you would think the Packers win this going away, that it's not a close game, that the Falcons are mired in the same struggles that they were in in the first two weeks.

10:48Nick Shook:By the time we get to halftime, the tone of the entire game has changed. And a lot of that is because of Bajon Robinson, but it's also because of the way Pettix found a rhythm. And you got to give him a ton of credit, having, you know, giving the fact that he hadn't played in forever and, you know, coming off of the injury, that he was able to overcome that. And I think what really started to help them out was their first touchdown drive. They get down inside the five, and it's Bajon Robinson scoring from three yards out. And one thing that really stuck out to me that kind of just set the tone and really kind of established their identity for how they wanted to play this game, they got a heavy package in there.

11:24Nick Shook:Kyle pits is blocking really well. He's forcing Lucas van Ness out of the play and Robinson cutting right back inside, getting through an arm tackle and scoring. And I thought, Oh, they're winning in the trenches. They're winning the physical battle. This is going to be an interesting one. We'll see if the Packers can bounce back with their offense, because what we've known about the Packers through now three weeks is that, you know, they they're an all passing offense and they got to find a rhythm. They never found it tonight. So a ton of credit to the Falcons for being able to win the physical battle, A team that just did not look, I mean, week one, they're largely shut down by the Steelers defense and they lose a low scoring game in which the Steelers, you know, they win by, I think it was by a touchdown, but it really was one of those games where when you look back at it, Pittsburgh kind of dominated the second half and completely shut down their offense.

12:08They were the worst two offenses in the league week.

12:10Nick Shook:Yes, you get to week two, and they're even worse. There was no reason on earth why I thought Michael Penix, coming off of the injury, first start of the year, they're going to go into Green Bay and punch the Packers in the mouth in the physical battle. And yet that's exactly what they did, which is why it's so impressive. So let's talk about Bijan big picture here. Look, I know he tweeted, or rather he signed in the offseason, or in training camp actually, the three-year, roughly 66-67, $47 million contract. So raise the bar. And then after that, Jameer Gibbs got his deal done to Detroit. The running back dominoes fall into place.

12:48I'm all for running backs making more money, especially when they're as good as B. John Robinson and Jameer Gibbs. We could talk about that outlier contract when you take a running back top five in Arizona for Jeremiah. I love that as a different conversation. B. John Robinson has earned every penny. And I tweeted during the game, then I retweeted later when he busted off another long run, when he kids, there's a phrase making guys miss in a phone booth. Phone booths are these things they used to have on the side of the road where you would go in and you would make a phone call with a coin. They were roughly the size of a high-top bar table.

13:23B. John Robinson was doing that all night, and I tweeted, Nick, that he's underpaid. I legitimately believe he is that good on nights like this where he is underpaid. Since 2012, the most games with 150 yards from scrimmage for a running back, Derrick Henry 13, Bijan Robinson 12. Derrick Henry was playing in 2022. Bijan was not. He was drafted in 2023. He is, I hate to use the phrase, generational running back or one of the greatest running backs I've ever seen. But he is legitimately somebody on a night like this where you will tell your kids you saw him play. that you will use his name as an adjective.

14:07We're Browns fans. You're not old enough to remember watching Eric Metcalf play, but I use the word Metcalfian as an adjective. That was a Metcalfian move. Like, Bijan makes moves that you one day will describe other running back moves by saying that was Bijan-esque, if that's even a word we could put together. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely.

14:31Nick Shook:Some might say Barry Sanders as well. And the funny thing about it too, is it's not just that he's a great player and we can look back to when Raheem Morris spoke about, I think he's the best player in the NFL before the start of last season. He thought, well, maybe that's a little bit of bluster. And then he basically went out and proved it. It's also that he is at his absolute best when the lights shine brightest, which is often not the case for some of the best players in the NFL. Consider this stat from research. Bajan is the first player in NFL history to have 200-plus scrimmage yards and a touchdown in back-to-back primetime games.

15:03Nick Shook:This is something that he does in these games. And last year, given the circumstances at quarterback, especially after they lost Penix, and just everything surrounding the team, it became, well, you can basically define a Falcons game as, did they feed the ball to Bajan? Yes, they may have won. Did they go away from him? They definitely lost. they were able to lean on him early and then expand beyond there which is what's most i think most impressive and what kevin stavanski and tommy reason the rest of the staff should really deserve the most credit for is that they used him as the starter as and also the closer and everything in between but it wasn't just him it's just that he was the best player on the field which shouldn't surprise anybody but falcons fans have to feel very thankful that this guy's on their roster.

15:48Nick Shook:It's funny. I go back to, I'll go sit in the suite and Indy at the combine. Right. And I'll watch these guys go through the drills and you know, you watch running backs go through the Deuce Staley drill and the bags and everything else. Right. And, and they all kind of look similar. Some stand out, some don't. And then Bajon runs them and I'm sitting back and it wasn't a strong running back class. And I watched him run through. And one of the first notes I took down was, Oh, he's just different. He's on a completely different level than the rest of these guys. I didn't think that he would come to the NFL and be on a completely different level than basically everybody else in the league as well.

16:18Nick Shook:And yet that's where we are. And tonight the Falcons benefited from it most. Yeah. I'm happy for Michael Penix that he was able to come back and do this. I'm happy for Kevin Stefanski. The Falcons still are without so many major pieces on defense. James Pierce suspended Jalen Walker out for the year. Deshaun Hand, AJ Terrell now on injured reserve. They put him on earlier this week, got hurt last week. He's a groin, no timetable. So consider they are severely underhanded. yet they still shut down the Green Bay running game. Jordan Love had some shots downfield. He hit that nice ball 40, 50 yards in the first half where Matthew Golden lost it and then found it, and that led to points.

17:01They kept taking shots early, didn't connect on many of them other than this one, drew a DPI or two, got some flags, but the offense looked discombobulated. The offensive line, obviously, with your right tackle, out for the season, also not yet there. And I know we said it was getting late early for Kevin Stefanski. No one thinks, and I'll reiterate this, he was truly in trouble after two weeks. Matt LaFleur got an extension in the offseason, and there was that period there where we weren't sure what his future would be down the stretch last year with a new team president and Ed policy with Mark Murphy heading into retirement.

17:47He got the extension. And you pointed out before we went on the air how LaFleur coming back from the half, speaking to Kaylee Hartung, kind of looked answer less. This reminds me of the game a year ago where on a Monday night, they lose 10-7 to the Eagles. At that point, they lost back-to-back games. And we haven't heard the postgame yet, the podium, but LaFleur was peppered with questions about his job security. And I don't know that that's going to happen tonight. Last year, he responded with four consecutive victories. I don't know, Shook. Is this the beginning of the end for Matt LaFleur?

18:31Nick Shook:I mean, it's fair to wonder. I will give him a break in some respects because because Josh Jacobs' suspension has essentially forced him to coach with a hand tied behind his back. And no Micah Parsons. I get it. And no Micah Parsons as well. I mean, they gave up a ton of yards, so I can't say the defense isn't the issue. But the real issue is that their offense is so unbalanced. They have no running game to speak of. They have the injuries up front, so they can't clear lanes. They can't really protect that well. Jordan Love took a lot of big hits, especially in the first half of tonight's game.

19:01But I understood his approach.

19:04Nick Shook:like going into this game, they went after CJ Henderson a ton early in this game. The replacement for AJ Terrell, a guy who was a former first round pick who's bounced around, who's never come close to living up to expectations. And Henderson played a great game, played a great game, one-on-one, whatever it was, he played a fantastic game. So if that is already, all right, well, that's our, our plan and our plans not working. Where else do we turn? They find some success elsewhere. It felt like they were a team that not necessarily were unprepared. to play, but maybe unprepared to meet the physicality that the Falcons brought to the field, which was like Tucker craft catching a pass down the sideline, but then getting it knocked out of his possession immediately on a key third down plays like that, where they're just, they're getting caught.

19:48Nick Shook:They're getting caught by surprise by a team that was hungrier than they were. And I think that when you're so limited offensively to just being a passing offense, to trying to turn to Caleb Johnson, a guy that the Steelers were very eager to just move on from relatively quickly given that they had drafted him not very long ago and you're trying as hard as you can to generate any sort of running game and it's not working and you become one-dimensional you're going to be limited in what you can do and if from the bigger picture with this whole team we are one blown lead I'm gonna give him some credit for coming back and beating the Jets and amid a downpour last week but Aaron Glenn handed it to him yes in in multiple ways Jordan Love did not look good in that game until the final moments really they should be on three they should be oh and three.

20:32Nick Shook:They should be, and they could make a case that they should be two and one because they definitely didn't deserve to win this game. And they were in the lead in Minnesota in week one, but they also collapsed and melted down amid defensive pressure there. So what's the common theme with this team right now? Can't run the ball, can't block well up front and their defense lacks teeth. I mean, tonight they gave up over 498 yards of offense, 242 on the ground. That is getting beat at the point of attack. That is the basis of football. Can you win in the trenches? Can you win at the point of attack?

21:03Nick Shook:Giving up 242 rushing yards is embarrassing. And I know Packers fans and Packers media are going to be rightfully, you know, harsh in their criticism of Matt LaFleur, who probably didn't deserve the extension, definitely didn't deserve the extension, I don't think, but got it because of the changes elsewhere within the organization. And the worst part about all of this is that I don't see a quick fix to this. Like you lose your best offensive line, Zach Baco Boele to a season ending injury. That's your best blocker. It's a group that was kind of unsteady last year to begin with. Your receivers are no longer your problem.

21:39Nick Shook:In fact, Matthew Golden played well. Christian Watson played well. Tucker Kraft. All right. Love found them. Love was inconsistent because he half the time he didn't have time to throw. It's the basic things that you cannot quickly fix. And for a coach who went into this offseason saying, I'm going to tear it down to the studs. We're going to act like it's a year one install. We're going to, you know, we've sorted through the personalities and people who weren't happy with their roles. They move on from Don Tavian Wicks. All of those changes look, look, not produce the change by the way. Yeah.

22:08Yeah. Don Tavian Wicks is looking good. In, in Philadelphia. Yeah. And now if you want to look at the schedule there, they get the mini by the Packers do. Then they go to Tampa next week. Who knows what Tampa is going to be. I think they're going to be Owen three. I think they're going to lose to the Vikings this Sunday, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. That's recreational purposes only. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future gain, but you go down and you face a hungry Tampa team. Then you come home for the Bears and the Cowboys and then go to Detroit, Carolina. I mean, look, it's not an easy road.

22:41No one has an easy schedule at this point. Actually, Eric, well done. We have Matt LaFleur, how he opened his presser moments ago. Hit it.

22:48Nick Shook:Well, that was a humbling night. Certainly, I don't think anybody's pleased about this. Um, and you know, we've got a couple of extra days here and everybody's got to take a long, hard look at themselves and we've got to find solutions and just come back ready to work. Um, but it certainly was a tough night. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really, it's, it's not good when you are giving the, you got to take a long, hard look at yourself line after week three. Like Baker today saying, you know, we need a sense of urgency. It's week three. It's week three. Can we, Eric, play the Boo Birds? Because there are a lot of them in the second half.

23:31Love under center, waiting for the snap. And he takes. Takes the handoff. Bootlegs right. Does Jordan Love. Throws. End zone. Incomplete. Watson in the end zone. Pretty well covered. Pass sailed over his head. Incomplete. And the Boo Birds are out at Lambeau Field.