Michael Penix Jr. got the ball back in Atlanta. The first throw that mattered did not stay with the Falcons.
On Thursday Night Football at Lambeau Field, Penix’s 2026 debut opened with a short-middle interception. Xavier McKinney took it at the Green Bay 40 after the Falcons had reached the Packers’ 49. The Athletic’s play log shows the sequence in four plays and 21 yards: Bijan Robinson for 4, Penix to Robinson for 17, an incompletion deep to Jahan Dotson, then the pick. McKinney jumped Dotson’s route near midfield, FOX Sports reported as the drive died.
ClutchPoints posted the turnover on X: “Michael Penix Jr. gets PICKED OFF on the Falcons’ opening drive”
Michael Penix Jr. gets PICKED OFF on the Falcons' opening drive 😮pic.twitter.com/YECoGhR5L8
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) September 25, 2026
Atlanta had named Penix the starter three days earlier for this prime-time trip, his first regular-season work since a torn ACL ended his 2025 season in November. That decision sat on the Falcons’ official site after Cooper Rush handled the 0-2 start. Kevin Stefanski, hired in January after six seasons in Cleveland, was seeing his new quarterback in live fire for the first time.
Green Bay did not cash the gift. The Packers ran three plays for 1 yard and punted in 54 seconds. Atlanta’s next series went five plays and 9 yards, another punt. Both offenses started stuck in the same mud.
Then Jordan Love got a clean series. From the Green Bay 13, he missed Matthew Golden deep, hit Golden for 45 yards down the right sideline, and kept stacking short throws — Marshawn Lloyd, Tucker Kraft, Savion Moore — until Christian Watson sat uncovered in the middle of the end zone. Love’s 4-yard scoring toss, the cap on a nine-play, 87-yard march, put the Packers up 7-0. The CBS Sports tracker shows Love 5-of-6 passing on that drive. Watson finished the play with the first Lambeau Leap of the year.
| Team | Drive | Plays-Yards | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falcons | 1 | 4-21 | McKinney INT |
| Packers | 1 | 3-1 | Punt |
| Falcons | 2 | 5-9 | Punt |
| Packers | 2 | 9-87 | Love-to-Watson 4-yd TD |
The score did not hold. Robinson ripped a 55-yard run to the Green Bay 5 and punched in a 3-yard touchdown. Nick Folk later drilled a 44-yard field goal. Zach Harrison blocked Trey Smack’s 47-yard try. Before the half, Penix found Austin Hooper on third-and-goal, his first touchdown pass of the season, and Atlanta led 17-7 with under a minute left in the second quarter — the live picture on Yahoo Sports as the first half closed.
That swing matters because of how the opening pick happened. Penix had already moved the chains. Second-and-10 at the Green Bay 49 is not a desperate down. He still put the ball in the middle of a defense that had McKinney sitting on the route. The read was late. The window was not there. For a quarterback coming off a major knee reconstruction, the footwork and timing on that throw are the first tape Stefanski will replay.
Green Bay arrived 1-1 after a 20-17 overtime win over the New York Jets, a walk-off 26-yard field goal from Smack that ended a six-game losing streak dating to last season. The Wausau Pilot & Review recap of that rally is the short-week backdrop: sloppy football, a short turnaround, and a home opener they wanted to control. Love’s scoring drive was the control they wanted. The three-and-outs around it were not.
Atlanta’s answer ran through Robinson. The Falcons had not lived in the red zone through two weeks. One explosive carry flipped field position, and the offense that looked stuck on the first two series suddenly had a lead. Penix’s night is still mixed — the interception, an early grounding, then the Hooper score off a blocked kick. The box is not clean. The scoreboard is.
The rest of the night will decide whether that first mistake is a footnote or the start of another long evening for an 0-2 club that handed the job back to Penix for a reason. Green Bay still has Love, Watson, and a defense that already took the ball away. Atlanta has the lead and the back who just ran through the first half.
