Thursday Night Football Week 3: Falcons vs Packers Predictions, Preview & Best Bets

Atlanta Falcons @ Green Bay Packers

Game Line: Packers -4.5

Total: 43.5 

 

Week 3 begins with Michael Penix’s return as the Atlanta Falcons head to Lambeau Field to meet the Green Bay Packers. Atlanta has done virtually nothing on offense to begin the season, so the return of Penix is welcomed. Green Bay narrowly escaped the Jets with a win last Sunday. Kick-off is set for 8:15 ET while the game will stream on Prime Video. 

 

This was one of the most interesting primetime games to break down so far this season in my opinion. Coming into the season I had low expectations for this Falcons team – but it was due to their defense not their offense. Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts are some of the most dynamic weaponry in the NFC, yet they’ve failed to even get into the Red Zone through to games. That blame can fall solely onto Cooper Rush (for now) who was, by all accounts, historically bad in almost any metric you look at. Michael Penix has yet to pay off the draft capital that the Falcons spent on him, but even if he is a slightly below average QB tonight the overall offensive output should improve drastically for Atlanta. 

 

The biggest factor when analyzing this game, for me, is the Green Bay defense. I was not high on this unit at all coming into the season and they have performed pretty poorly across the board. That performance doesn’t inspire much confidence when you realize they’ve faced Carson Wentz and Geno Smith in their first two games. Even if Penix doesn’t expose them tonight, this is a defense I want to attack as long as Micah Parsons is out. 

 

I’m expecting Penix to get Robinson, London and Pitts back on track tonight and it’s why I bet on them to score over 18.5 points in the game. I don’t want to mess around with either side of the spread given how much the line has moved – so I’m opting for Penix to revitalize this team a little bit on the short week. 

 

Speaking of short weeks, much has been made this week about how poorly teams coming off OT have performed on a short week in recent seasons. That, coupled with offensive line injuries, has caused this line to fall from Packers -7, to -4.5. I could certainly see the Packers struggling with those offensive line injuries against the Falcons who have actually performed well in terms of generating pressure. It’s a weird situation overall, but I don’t see the Packers having much success running the ball given their personnel right now. It’s going to have to come through Jordan Love, Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and Tucker Kraft. Watson would be my pick for the big game here, but Kraft feels inevitably due for a TD. He basically got back to a full time role last week, and we could see more quick targets to offset the OL issues. Atlanta has already allowed 3 TDs to TEs this season. I also think Chris Brooks could see a big role as a receiver – he has run the most routes on the Packers among RBs and screens / dump offs could be in play a lot here tonight as well. 

 

Touchdown Prediction: Drake London

Score Prediction: Packers 27, Falcons 20