The Atlanta Falcons visit the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football on September 24, 2026 at 8:15 PM ET from Lambeau Field, streaming on Prime Video, with Michael Penix Jr. making his first start since tearing his ACL last November. Atlanta arrives 0-2 after scoring 16 points in two games and turning the ball over seven times. Green Bay arrives 1-1 after an overtime escape at the Jets that snapped a six-game losing streak, and this is the Packers' home opener. The BettorEdge community board has Green Bay as a clear favorite. Below you get what changed at quarterback for Atlanta, what is still wrong in Green Bay, the injury report, the series history, the community odds, and the case on each side of the board.
Quick comparison
| Atlanta Falcons | Green Bay Packers | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 0-2 | 1-1 |
| Results | L 20-13 at Pittsburgh, L 34-3 vs Carolina | L 39-22 at Minnesota, W 20-17 (OT) at New York Jets |
| Points scored and allowed | 16 and 54 | 42 and 56 |
| Turnovers | 7 (5 interceptions, 2 lost fumbles) | 3 |
| Third downs | 6 of 25 | 4 of 21 |
| Thursday quarterback | Michael Penix Jr., first start of 2026 | Jordan Love, 532 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT |
| Head coach | Kevin Stefanski | Matt LaFleur |
| Community moneyline | +245 | -272 |
Match: Atlanta Falcons at Green Bay Packers, NFL Week 3, Thursday Night Football
Kickoff: Thursday, September 24, 2026, 8:15 PM ET (7:15 PM CT, 5:15 PM PT)
Venue: Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Packers' 2026 home opener
Watch: Prime Video nationally, with Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung; WGBA NBC26 in Green Bay and WITI FOX6 in Milwaukee locally
Listen: Packers Radio Network with Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren; Westwood One nationally
Atlanta: the quarterback change is the whole story
Kevin Stefanski named Michael Penix Jr. the starter for Thursday after two weeks that could hardly have gone worse at the position. Cooper Rush started both games and went 22 of 39 for 229 yards with one touchdown, four interceptions and a lost fumble before he was benched in Week 2. Undrafted rookie Jack Strand replaced him against Carolina and threw a pick-six on his first NFL pass. Atlanta turned it over five times in the 34-3 loss, and has scored one offensive touchdown all season.
Penix tore his left ACL in Week 11 last November and needed reconstructive surgery plus an additional stabilization procedure. He was cleared for full practice in late August but told the team before Week 1 that he was not ready for game action, and he was a full participant on this week's first practice report. The eighth overall pick in 2024 has 12 career starts, completing 59.6% of his passes for 2,757 yards with 12 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.
The complication is Tua Tagovailoa, who has been out with an oblique injury and sits behind Penix on the depth chart. Stefanski said Monday that Tagovailoa is "getting better." That is a depth question for later in the season, not for Thursday.
Around the quarterback, the pieces are real. Bijan Robinson has 155 rushing yards on 37 carries and 11 catches for 99 yards and a touchdown through two games, and has been the one consistent source of offense. Drake London has only six catches for 80 yards, which says more about the quarterback play than about London. Atlanta's run game produced 157 yards against Carolina even in a blowout, so the offense is not broken everywhere. It is broken at the position Penix now fills.
The defense has been more respectable than the scoreboard suggests. It held Pittsburgh to 264 total yards in Week 1 and the Steelers to 3 of 13 on third down. The problem is that it will be without cornerback A.J. Terrell Jr., who was placed on injured reserve this week with a groin injury.
Green Bay: a win that did not look like one
The Packers' 20-17 overtime win at the Jets ended a six-game losing streak, their longest since a seven-game skid spanning the 1990 and 1991 seasons. It also came with 14 accepted penalties for 133 yards, a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit, and a Trey Smack 26-yard field goal to finish it. A week earlier Green Bay had a fourth-quarter collapse at Minnesota and lost 39-22.
Jordan Love has been two different quarterbacks. At Minnesota he threw for 387 yards and two touchdowns on 21 of 42 passing. At the Jets he threw for 145 yards on 16 of 29, with touchdowns to Christian Watson and MarShawn Lloyd. Across both games he is completing 52.1% of his passes and has been sacked seven times.
Christian Watson is the big-play threat: 10 catches for 188 yards and three touchdowns, including an 81-yard reception at Minnesota. Matthew Golden has 10 catches for 153 yards. The run game has been the gap. Josh Jacobs was placed on the NFL Commissioner's Exempt List in late August while misdemeanor charges against him are pending, and Green Bay has run for 129 yards in two games with MarShawn Lloyd, Chris Brooks and Kaleb Johnson, who was acquired from Pittsburgh after Jacobs became unavailable.
The offensive line is the concern that ties it together. Left guard Aaron Banks missed Week 1 with a knee injury and left the Jets game at halftime with a toe injury, and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele hurt his knee. Both were listed as did not participate on Monday's report, as were defensive tackles Warren Brinson and Anthony Campbell, guard Donovan Jennings and receiver Jayden Reed. Reed is listed with a neck injury after staying in New York following the game, and a short week is not much time to get any of them back.
The defense has carried more than its share. Edge rusher Lukas Van Ness has 2.5 sacks and linebacker Edgerrin Cooper has two through two games, and Van Ness had 10 tackles and four quarterback hits against the Jets. After the win, LaFleur said, "I can't give enough credit to our defense."
Read the line, then beat it.
Once you can read a price you can spot a bad one. BettorEdge shows real peer-to-peer odds, and they are often better than the book you would get stuck with.
Stat spotlight
Jordan Love
Christian Watson
Michael Penix Jr.
Bijan Robinson
Two games is a small sample, so read these as context for the lines rather than as trends. The player lines come from fewer quoting partners than the game markets, so they are thinner numbers.
Head to head
Green Bay leads the regular-season series 17-15 and is 12-4 as the home team, including wins in each of the last four meetings at Lambeau Field. The most recent game went the other way: Atlanta won 25-24 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on September 17, 2023. This is the first Thursday meeting between the two clubs.
The home-opener angle is worth knowing too. According to the team, Green Bay has won 13 consecutive home openers, 2013 through 2025, which ties the 1976 to 1988 Dolphins for the longest such streak in NFL history, so a win Thursday would make it a record. That is a fact about the franchise, not about this roster, and it says nothing about a 1-1 team with a banged-up line, but it is part of why the building will be loud.
The community odds, and what the numbers tell you
| Market | Green Bay | Atlanta | Quoting partners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | -272 | +245 | 7 |
| Spread | -6.5 (+108) | +6.5 (-112) | 5 |
| Total 44.5 | Over +100, Under -111 | 6 | |
These are BettorEdge community odds as of Tuesday, September 22 at 4:23 PM ET. The moneyline has seven independent quoting partners behind it, which is about as settled as this board gets for an NFL game two days out.
Green Bay at -272 implies about 73.1%. Atlanta at +245 implies about 29.0%. Together that is about 102.1%. The spread pair sums to about 100.8% and the total to about 102.4%. A house market posting -110 on both sides of a spread or total adds up to 104.8%, and that extra margin is taken before anyone is right about anything. On a peer-to-peer board there are two members and one pot, which is why these pairs sit so much closer to 100.
One detail on the spread. The board's center is just under a touchdown, with Green Bay -6.5 priced at plus money. At the full seven, Green Bay -7 is about +116 and Atlanta +7 about -132, so that half point is worth real money in both directions. If you are going to play the side, the key number matters more than usual.
Thursday night at Lambeau, Penix back under center, at a price another member set rather than one a house needed.
Open the live boardThe case on each side of the board
BettorEdge does not take a side. Here is the argument for and against each one, at the prices above.
Backing Green Bay, at -272 or -6.5. For: the quarterback gap is real on Thursday. Love has two touchdown passes in each game, Watson is averaging 18.8 yards a catch, and Atlanta's secondary loses its top corner. Atlanta's offense has seven turnovers and 6 of 25 on third down, and now asks a quarterback who has not played since November to fix that on a short week, on the road, in prime time. The home crowd, the opener and a 12-4 home record in the series all point the same way. Against: this is a Green Bay team that needed overtime and a 10-point fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Jets, committed 14 penalties doing it, has no established lead back, and may be patching together a line with two starters who did not practice Monday. Laying a touchdown or close to it asks that team to win comfortably, and it has not won comfortably yet.
Backing Atlanta, at +245 or +6.5. For: Atlanta's numbers were produced by Rush and Strand, and none of them were produced by Penix. Robinson is averaging over 4 yards a carry, the defense held Pittsburgh to 264 yards, and Green Bay's pass protection has given up seven sacks with its line now thinner still. A price near 29% for a team that just made the biggest upgrade available to it, against a team whose one win was a coin flip in overtime, is the kind of number where a single good half from the new quarterback changes the game. Against: a quarterback's first game back from an ACL reconstruction is not a normal game, and Penix's start was public before this snapshot, so the price already includes it. The defense lost its best corner this week, the offense has one touchdown in eight quarters, and a 34-3 home loss four days before a road Thursday is not a result that tends to reverse itself inside a week.
The total, at 44.5. For the Over: Green Bay's offense put up 419 yards in Week 1, Watson already has three touchdowns, and Penix raises Atlanta's ceiling from almost nothing to something. Against: Atlanta's two games combined for 33 and 37 points, Green Bay's second game finished at 37 in overtime, both teams are on a short week, and both offenses are 10 for 46 on third down between them.
Guides and tools
To check the math in this piece yourself, the no-vig calculator strips the margin out of any two-sided price, and the odds converter turns -272 into the 73.1% figure above. The Falcons vs Packers game page tracks this matchup, the NFL odds page has the rest of Week 3, and there is a wider library of betting guides.
Injury reports on a short week land late, and Green Bay's line is the one to watch. Check where the number actually is before acting on any snapshot, including this one.
Bet this gameFalcons vs Packers FAQ
When is Falcons vs Packers and what channel is it on?
The Atlanta Falcons play the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 8:15 PM ET at Lambeau Field, streaming nationally on Prime Video. In Wisconsin it also airs on WGBA NBC26 in Green Bay and WITI FOX6 in Milwaukee, with Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung on the call.
Who is starting at quarterback for the Falcons against the Packers?
Michael Penix Jr. starts at quarterback for Atlanta on Thursday, his first start since tearing his left ACL in Week 11 last November. Cooper Rush started the first two games and was benched after throwing four interceptions, and Tua Tagovailoa has been out with an oblique injury.
What are the odds for Falcons vs Packers?
The BettorEdge community board has Green Bay at -272 and Atlanta at +245 on the moneyline, with the spread at Packers -6.5 and the total at 44.5, as of September 22. Those two moneyline prices sum to about 102.1%, against 104.8% for a standard house market pricing both sides at -110. Community prices move, so check the live board before kickoff.
Is Josh Jacobs playing against the Falcons?
No, Josh Jacobs is not playing, because he has been on the NFL Commissioner's Exempt List since late August while misdemeanor charges against him are pending. Green Bay has used MarShawn Lloyd, Chris Brooks and Kaleb Johnson, acquired from Pittsburgh, and has run for 129 yards in two games.
Who is injured for the Packers and Falcons?
Green Bay listed receiver Jayden Reed, left guard Aaron Banks, right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele, guard Donovan Jennings and defensive tackles Warren Brinson and Anthony Campbell as non-participants on Monday, and Atlanta placed cornerback A.J. Terrell Jr. on injured reserve with a groin injury. Final game statuses come out after Wednesday's practice, so check the report before kickoff.
What is the Falcons vs Packers head-to-head record?
Green Bay leads the regular-season series 17-15 and has won the last four meetings at Lambeau Field. Atlanta won the most recent game 25-24 in Atlanta on September 17, 2023, and Thursday is the first time the teams have met on a Thursday.
The short version
Falcons at Packers, Thursday September 24 at 8:15 PM ET from Lambeau Field on Prime Video, the Packers' home opener. Atlanta is 0-2 with 16 points and seven turnovers, and turns to Michael Penix Jr. in his first start since last November's ACL tear. Green Bay is 1-1, needed overtime to beat the Jets, has no Josh Jacobs, and may be short two starting linemen and Jayden Reed. The BettorEdge community board has Green Bay at -272 and Atlanta at +245 from seven quoting partners, the spread at 6.5 and the total at 44.5, with the moneyline pair summing to about 102.1% rather than the 104.8% a house charges. Get your action on BettorEdge, at a price another member set rather than one a house needed.
Read the line, then beat it.
Once you can read a price you can spot a bad one. BettorEdge shows real peer-to-peer odds, and they are often better than the book you would get stuck with.