While players often complain about Thursday Night Football the Green Bay Packers are being given a bit of a gift with this week's assignment. After the first week of the season all that could be talked about is a late collapse against Minnesota that in many ways mirrored exactly what fans watched in last season's first round playoff lost. Having two such commanding leads crumble away be the last two memories for Packer fans was difficult to stomach.
This leads us to looking at why TNF isn't a negative for a team that just escaped with an overtime win against the New York Jets. Not only did the Packers find a way to finish the game, but now they have a soft matchup. The Atlanta Falcons are the only team in the league not to have a single snap in the red zone in the 2026 season.
It is so awful it is impressive when you look around the league and consider some of the terrible offensive units and quarterback situations with far more accomplishments. The Packers would have one of the worse losses of the season if they were to drop the game to Atlanta on Thursday night. The more likely outcome is putting away a bad team early on and going 2-1 and having extra rest for the following week.
Green Bay was given a gift in the fact they can quickly turnaround a season that appeared to be off to a dumpster fire of a start. Sitting at 2-1 you take your fanbase from talking about something being deeply wrong to excited and considering another NFC North title run.
Packers Were Given a Gift with Schedule that Offers Clear Opportunity to Wipe Away Awful Start
Green Bay will face an upgrade over Cooper Rush, as Michael Penix Jr. is expected to take over the Falcons are two incredibly ugly starts from the veteran backup. Still, this is the first start of the season for a player yet to prove himself a capable starting option. Add in the fact Penix is coming off an ACL tear and it is far from the first serious knee injury and the Falcons appear an easy target for a talented Green Bay roster.
It simply is impossible to argue that having the quick turnaround isn't a benefit for a team that needed to wipe away what happened in Week 1. Jordan Love took that first step by finding a way to complete a comeback against a surprisingly spunky Jets roster.
Now, four days later you can have a winning record for the first time this season and excite a fanbase that coming into Week 1 had high expectations for a talented roster.
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