How a ‘Superman’ pregame speech sparked Falcons’ win at Packers
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Chris Lindstrom didn’t have any lines rehearsed or even a direction planned for his pregame speech when the Falcons surrounded him shortly before kickoff Thursday night at Lambeau Field.
The team captain and All-Pro right guard merely let his emotions come out.
“Nobody f---ing believes in this group,” Lindstrom yelled loud enough to decipher on Amazon Prime’s pregame huddle camera. “I do. I love you guys.”
As Lindstrom’s voice echoed throughout his teammates’ helmets, safety Jessie Bates III shoved him once, then again, and again. There was no script, only two captains — two veteran leaders — feeding off each other with the rest of their teammates watching.
On the spot. Straight from the heart.
“It has to be,” Lindstrom said postgame, “because it has to be genuine.”
Lindstrom routinely carries high energy and has rightfully earned the spot as the Falcons’ pregame hype man. But even for his standards, Thursday entered new heights. Dangerous heights, even.
“One of our coaches, he was looking at Chris, like, ‘Yeah, this dude might kill somebody,’” star running back Bijan Robinson said postgame, laughing.
The Falcons (1-2) followed Lindstrom’s lead, carrying energy and intensity throughout a 35-14 win over the Green Bay Packers (1-2) on “Thursday Night Football” at Lambeau Field.
And like in Lindstrom’s speech, where Bates helped his cause, the Falcons tapped into complementary football. It’s easy, Lindstrom said, to feed off each other when every phase is doing its part.
The Falcons tallied 498 yards of offense — quarterback Michael Penix Jr. threw for 256 yards and the team rushed for 242 yards — while holding the Packers to just 318 total yards. They blocked a field goal. Kicker Nick Folk had his first unblemished day.
Coach Kevin Stefanski wanted the Falcons to meet the team’s standard in all three phases. They did Thursday night. Lindstrom helped set the tone.
“Pregame, he was like Superman,” Robinson said. “I was like, ‘I wouldn’t want to get in front of Chris.’ But he just feeds it off to the whole team.”
The Falcons dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Penix wasn’t sacked and took only one quarterback hit. The team rushed for three touchdowns, including two on seven-linemen jumbo packages.
Robinson said the Falcons’ offensive line set a plan to be more physical than the Packers’ defense. Mission accomplished.
“It was definitely fun to watch those guys,” Robinson said. “Sometimes I get caught when I’m running the football, watching them block because they’re just pancaking people. They’re moving people out the hole. I’m just like, ‘Yo, this is an art.’ So, they just make my job easy, and I’m just trying to make them look good.”
The Falcons’ defensive line flourished, too. The unit only sacked Packers quarterback Jordan Love once, but it hit Love some 12 times. The Falcons pressured Love on 23 of his 55 dropbacks, according to Next Gen Stats, and limited him to just 8-for-21 passing for 71 yards and one interception on those snaps.
“Outstanding,” Stefanski said. “Like I told them, they harassed the quarterback. I think sacks can be liars. We love to get the sacks whenever we can, but you want to pressure the quarterback and I thought he was under pressure quite a bit.”
Falcons defensive tackles Gervon Dexter Sr. and Brandon Dorlus combined for 11 quarterback pressures, per Next Gen Stats, to go along with six quarterback hits. Dexter wishes they had more sacks, but he feels the unit collectively affected Love.
The Falcons also shut down the Packers’ ground game, holding Green Bay to just 17 rushing yards on nine attempts.
“We go into every game like that, not just this one,” Dexter said of the Falcons thinking they can control the line of scrimmage. “That’s our mindset as a D-line. We feel like we’re the best.”
Stefanski felt the Falcons fell short of their standard in Weeks 1 and 2. Thursday night — with an equal turnover margin and complementary football running rampant — was closer to the mark he wants his team to reach.
But the Falcons insist they aren’t leaving Green Bay complacent. Robinson admitted he’s lived this movie before, winning big games only for letdowns to follow. The first-time team captain reminded his teammates of it, too.
“My message to the team is we can’t let this game get into our heads, creep into our minds at all,” Robinson said. “We have to really flush this game and get ready for the Saints (on Oct. 5). That’s who is on our minds right now. Like, this is great. Awesome.
“But as a team, we have to let this one go. Because if we don’t — in this NFL, shoot, we lost by a lot last week and then we won this week. So, we got to just stay as consistent as possible for all of us.”
Robinson’s message didn’t carry the same fire as Lindstrom’s nearly four hours earlier, but it brings similar significance as the Falcons move forward — and with Stefanski preaching the same idea, it appears to have landed.
“It can be considered the standard, but I think there’s still another notch, another two notches, that we can go as a team,” receiver Drake London said. “That’s what we’re soul-searching for right now. And that’s what Stefanski does. He does a great job of not letting us be complacent and holding us all accountable to the higher standard.”
