The Snap Atlanta Has Not Taken

Atlanta has run 124 offensive plays this season, and not one of them from inside an opponent's 20. The deepest snap in Pittsburgh was the 22; the deepest Sunday, in a 34-3 loss to Carolina at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was the Carolina 23, a fourth-and-4 field goal. Across all 30 completed box scores through Week 2, every other offense in the league has at least one red-zone trip.

Rebuilt from both boxes, the two-game column reads 16 points, seven turnovers, 247 net passing yards, seven sacks taken, 6 of 25 on third down and 4.2 yards a play. Sixteen is the fewest through two games since 2007 by ESPN's schedules. Asked on the club's site what he attributed the offense to, Kevin Stefanski answered: "Turning the ball over." True, and worth 14 of the 34.

Where the five went

Cooper Rush's first snap was a 9-yard scramble that Zakee Wheatley stripped and Nick Scott recovered at the Atlanta 35; a 35-yard touchdown drive followed. Third-and-5 at the Atlanta 48 on the next series, a throw for Bijan Robinson went to Bobby Okereke, and Carolina punted. Okereke had another at the Carolina 23 that replay reversed; Nick Folk's 41-yarder followed. In the third quarter a throw for Kyle Pitts Sr. from the Carolina 38 went to Devin Lloyd, 53 yards to the 20, and Carolina turned it over on downs at the 2. Jack Strand's first throw, third-and-2 at the 10 on a drive that began at that 2, went for Jahan Dotson off Jaycee Horn's hand, per the play-by-play, and Lloyd returned it 16 yards. The last was a sack-fumble with 50 seconds left by the play-by-play's account, Aaron Hall recovering; the AP recap calls it a fumbled snap.

Fourteen of the 34 came off those five. The other 20 came on drives that started at Carolina's 20, 27 and 27 and at the Atlanta 29.

What the offense could run

The wide-zone half worked: 157 yards on 32 carries, 4.9 apiece, Bijan 16 for 72 and Brian Robinson Jr. 11 for 51. The dropback half did not: 129 net yards on 35 dropbacks, 3.7 a snap. Of the 32 attempts that counted, one went deep by ESPN's tags, incomplete to Jahan Dotson; the other deep throw, 25 yards to Drake London, came back on a face mask. The one drive that scored went 13 plays from a first-and-16 at the 6 and stopped at the 23.

The third-down column I set out Friday has its second row. Carolina's defense went from 10 of 14 allowed against Chicago to 4 of 13; Atlanta went from 2 of 12 to 4 of 13. Both halves moved. Neither produced a red-zone snap.

The sequel on the other side

Thursday I wrote that Bryce Young's problem for Atlanta is coverage, not pass rush, and that Sunday tested a third cornerback room. The room held for 3 minutes, 21 seconds of game clock. A.J. Terrell Jr. was hurt at 11:39 of the first quarter on a pass defensed against Tetairoa McMillan, a groin injury per the AP recap. Against Mike Hughes and C.J. Henderson, the corners on the box score's tackle lines from there, Young went 23 of 36 for 287 and three touchdowns. McMillan caught five for 101; the rush managed two split sacks and eight hits. Three Ulbrich games, three cornerback rooms: 121, 448, 287. Young is 5-1 as a starter against Atlanta, whose October 2024 win came against Andy Dalton, and Carolina has won the last four in the series.

The room, and Thursday

Friday I called the Rush start a choice about one Sunday that said nothing about Michael Penix Jr. or Tua Tagovailoa. The tape narrows that rather than overturning it: the Sunday it produced grades the dropback half of this offense, four interceptions in two starts and a fifth reversed, and grades nothing about the two quarterbacks who did not play. "Cooper’s giving us everything he’s got," Stefanski said, per the AP recap. Per Marc Raimondi at ESPN: "To be fair, I don't think now's the time to know what the plan is [for next] week."

Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter reported Sunday morning, seven hours before kickoff, that Penix could make his debut Thursday, a report, not a club decision. It is the left knee, per ESPN, a partially torn ACL in the club's Sept. 16 wording, surgery in November, hurt against this opponent in this stadium last Nov. 16. Tagovailoa's oblique, from the Sept. 10 practice, kept him doubtful, then inactive. On the club's own Week 2 depth chart Strand is third and Penix fourth; "fourth-string" is ESPN's count. Dex wrote that whoever started Sunday starts Thursday; the grade is his.

Thursday is Sept. 24 at Lambeau Field, 8:15 p.m. ET on Prime Video, Green Bay's home opener at 1-1 after a 20-17 overtime win at the Jets, four days, seven hours and fifteen minutes after Sunday's kickoff. Whoever takes the snap, the column that needs its first entry is the one at the 20.