For all the passive agressive "smack talk" - and we hated to use that term earlier in the week - between Aaron Rodgers and Roddy White, Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji summed up the state of the Green Bay / Atlanta "rivalry" quite accurately on Sunday night, courtesy of Yahoo's Len Pasquarelli:
"We're just a better team than they are," announced nose tackle B.J. Raji, who helped close down the inside gaps after the Falcons' first two series. "Honestly. Those guys talk a lot … they make a lot of noise."
Some other noise, from Falcons head coach Mike Smith on the Falcons' flash-in-the-pan 14 points, scored in the first two drives:
"The way you play the first quarter is the way you want to play football, and then after that it wasn’t the way we wanted to go out there and play. We made way too many mistakes, and had uncharacteristic penalties at inopportune times. I told our team in there after the ball game that there’s still a lot of football left to be played."
Matt Ryan didn't feel like the Packers adjusted to out scheme Atlanta after the Falcons' first two TD drives:
"No, I think we had a good game plan and we came out and we executed really well on the first two drives. Then we didn’t do a very good job of that from that point on. We put ourselves in some tough positions to overcome, got off of schedule on first and second downs. Some of the penalties and mental mistakes that we had are disappointing and they’re tough to overcome, especially when you’re playing against a very good football team and a very good defense like Green Bay."
After five games, the Super Bowl Champions are 5-0 and steadily improving. The Falcons actually played the Packers to their lowest offensive output of the season, yet Donald Driver is convinced Green Bay is unstoppable. When asked who could beat the Packers, his list was short.
"Us."