Good morning. This is LEADOFF, an early look at Atlanta sports.
There hasn't been a game played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium since Saturday. But there has been a lot of action up on the roof since then.
The 4,000-ton retractable roof was opened Sunday, then closed again Monday, as efforts continue to make adjustments to get it fully mechanized and up to speed.
NBC Sports, which will nationally televise the Falcons' regular-season home opener against the Green Bay Packers, took advantage of the briefly open roof "to get some shots for us to use in the promotion of the game and obviously during the game on September 17th," Fred Gaudelli, executive producer of the network's Sunday Night Football, said Tuesday.
The roof will be closed during all stadium events until mechanization work is completed. Stadium officials have said they expect to be able to open the roof for events at some point this year, but they don’t know when. It won’t be until October at the earliest.
WSB’s Mark McKay tweeted videos of the roof open and closed the past two days:
Beginning Thursday, the stadium will host three football games in five days -- the Falcons vs. the Jaguars in an exhibition game Thursday, No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 3 Florida State in a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game Saturday and Georgia Tech vs. No. 25 Tennessee in a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game Monday.
Click here for more details on the status of the roof.
Is Alabama-Florida State college football’s greatest opener of all time? See story here.
Georgia Tech football team practiced Tuesday in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. See story here.
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