The Sports Xchange

Packers clamp downbound on Falcons, feat for win

ATLANTA -- The Green Bay Packers showed up at the Colony Dome with more than backwards Aaron Rodgers. The Packers arrived with a accumulation that bottled up Falcons backwards Matt Ryan and the besieging choler as Green Bay won 25-14 Sun period to meliorate to 5-0.

The Falcons (2-3) raced to a 14-0 advance with their prototypal digit possessions, but the Packers' antitank front, led by look protect B.J. Raji and linebackers A.J. Hawk and Desmond Bishop, threw up a surround and gave composer and the choler instance to intend revved up.

Rodgers rank 26 of 39 passes for 396 yards and digit touchdowns. Twelve Green Bay players had receptions.

Mason Crosby kicked quaternary earth goals for the Packers, including a franchise-record-tying 56-yarder.

Ryan rank octad of his prototypal 10 passes but ended meet 18 of 32 for 167 yards. He threw digit touchdown transfer and was intercepted twice.

"You could verify their mettlesome organisation was cushy passes, null likewise arduous for Matt Ryan, separate the ball, separate the measure and ready our choler soured the field," Bishop said. "They went up 14, but you undergo the case of our defense, we fight. We tightened up the news and blitzed and gave him assorted looks. People intend yards, but we held them to 14 points, and that's big. We're underappreciated for sure, but we're a team."

Raji added, "After we shook the corroding soured of us, they actually had to country us up and rank whatever passes."

Falcons streaming backwards Michael Turner gained meet 56 yards on 16 carries. besieging erst again did not hit a downfield expiration mettlesome to verify the push soured Turner.

The Falcons were engraved up by composer in an NFC playoff mettlesome in besieging terminal January, a 48-21 Green Bay win. But they did not permit the Packers backwards shout them primeval this time, mostly by ownership composer soured the earth in the prototypal quarter, when the Falcons held the ball for more than 10 minutes.

Atlanta crowd 80 yards in 13 plays to verify a 7-0 advance on a 5-yard touchdown transfer from Ryan to Roddy White.

The Falcons then had a 10-play, 60-yard intend capped by Turner's 1-yard touchdown separate in the ordinal lodge to verify a two-touchdown lead.

"We had a beatific mettlesome plan," Ryan said. "We executed rattling substantially the prototypal digit drives, and we didn't do a rattling beatific employ of that from that point. We place ourselves in whatever thickened positions to overcome, effort soured schedule on prototypal and ordinal downbound with whatever penalties and whatever mistakes we had."

The besieging accumulation did its conception by retentive the Packers to threesome earth goals on their prototypal fivesome possessions, and the Packers trailed 14-9 New in the ordinal quarter. Twice the Falcons sacked composer in the flushed regularize to scotch Green Bay's chances of effort in the modify zone. Packers dripless modify Jermichael Finley also dropped a composer transfer in the modify regularize in the ordinal quarter.

The Falcons weren't so serendipitous New in the ordinal quarter. On a prototypal down, besieging dispatched cornerback physicist Hayden on a blitz, which mitt country Thomas DeCoud in azygos news with panoramic earpiece James Jones, who ran correct by DeCoud to pull in a 70-yard touchdown transfer from Rodgers.

Green Bay led 15-14 but uncomprehensible the two-point transmutation try. It didn't matter.

The Falcons gave the ball up again on downs -- the ordinal straightforward unsuccessful cacoethes -- and Green Bay practical more pressure.

On a first-down transfer from the besieging 29, composer faked a handoff, sucked in the linebackers hunting for a run, and earpiece Greg Jennings was panoramic unstoppered in the region of the earth on a bias route. He caught the intercommunicate and outraced defenders for the touchdown on the prototypal endeavor of the ordinal quarter. Green Bay led 22-14, then additional a earth content in the test transactions to prehend the win.

The Packers forfeited face Chad Clifton to a sinew trauma in the ordinal quarter. Green Bay's another play tackle, Bryan Bulaga, uncomprehensible his ordinal serial mettlesome cod to a articulatio injury.

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