The Green Bay Packers got a virtuoso passing performance by quarterback Aaron Rodgers and more major contributions on defense by cornerback Tramon Williams. And they, not the Atlanta Falcons, played like a dominant team Saturday night at the Georgia Dome.
It didn’t take the offenses long to get going. The Falcons took the lead on their second possession of the night. Coach Mike Smith left his offense on the field for a fourth-and-one gamble from the Green Bay 13-yard line, perhaps sensing this wasn’t the sort of game in which field goals would be sufficient to win. The Falcons got the first down on a one-yard run by fullback Ovie Mughelli, and on the next play Turner weaved his way around defenders for a 12-yard touchdown dash.
But Rodgers was on target from the outset, and the Packers had a swift reply. Rodgers’s passing took the Packers down the field, and he zipped a six-yard throw to Nelson for the touchdown.
Weems caught the ensuing kickoff in his end zone, sprinted straight up the middle of the field, eluded Crosby with a fake to the left and a sharp cut to the right and outraced everyone else in pursuit for a 102-yard touchdown. But Rodgers and the Packers were just getting started. Rodgers took the Packers 92 yards for a touchdown, ending with Kuhn’s one-yard run.
The Falcons squandered a scoring chance when Ryan threw an end-zone interception to Tramon Williams, and Jones outjumped Atlanta cornerback Brent Grimes to catch Rodgers’s 20-yard touchdown lob 42 seconds before halftime. That capped Rodgers’s 18-for-21, 234-yard, two-touchdown passing show in the first half.
The Packers weren’t finished, however. Ryan, trying to get the Falcons down the field in a hurry, rolled to his left and threw a pass toward his favorite receiving target, White, along the sideline. But Williams cut in front of White and grabbed the pass, then raced 70 yards to the opposite end zone with no time on the clock. That quickly, the Packers had a two-touchdown lead at the intermission.
They made it 28 straight points – and a 21-point advantage – in the third quarter when Rodgers improvised for a touchdown on a seven-yard scramble. The Packers got the ball back and made it a 42-14 game on Rodgers’s seven-yard touchdown pass to Kuhn.
The sixth-seeded Packers, who needed a win on the final Sunday of the regular season to secure the NFC’s last wild-card playoff spot, scored 35 consecutive points after the Falcons grabbed a 14-7 lead on Eric Weems’s second-quarter touchdown on a kickoff return.
Image by chad davis via Flickr
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