I don’t know whether or not I called for the Pack to take a beating at the hands of the Falcons, but I know I thought it.

So I’d better own it.

I’m not sure if it was because they had a game under their belts, or because coach McCarthy made a few lineup changes, or that the Green Bay Packers were playing at Lambeau Field,  or just that they were going up against a weaker team than they did last week.

Whatever the case, the Packers looked much better in their 38-10 preseason win over the Atlanta Falcons last night.  Greg Jennings got a “Welcome to the NFL”-style hit in the first half when he was trying to catch a ball on a short route through the middle.  Though he dropped that ball, most of the night he continued to make Ted Thompson look like a great evaluator of talent.

Zone blocking has yet to impress.  They’ve got new guys running a new scheme, so maybe it should be expected, but when it was first string against first string last night, the Packers had a hard time moving the ball on the ground.

But the passing game saw pretty nice results.  On a free play (due to penalty) Favre still threw up a watermelon that an Atlanta defending feasted on, and that continues to frustrate me.  Bubba Franks scored a TD on a “whoosa-whatda-diddyjuss” play in the first half, when a pass intended for TE David Martin ricocheted off his hands like a bumped volleyball into the hands of a waiting Franks.  Aaron Rodgers got in the act later in the game with an 85-yard strike to Greg Jennings.

While the offense improved, it’s hard to say whether the defense learned much from the previous week; Michael Vick only saw a few minutes of action and Warrick Dunn and Alge Crumpler, important weapons in the Falcon offense, spectated the game.

Their next preseason game is on Monday Night Football, August 28th, against the Cincinnati Bengals.  If the Bengals have enough guys not currently encarcerated to field a team, this should be a good barometer of the Packer season to come.

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