MOMENTUM: Aaron Rodgers, The Green Bay Packers, and The Atlanta Falcons

In my Quick Thoughts on the Steelers-Ravens matchup earlier, I talked multiple times about the concept of Momentum and how NFL teams should strive towards understanding it better – its effects, controlling it, and how to utilize it to their advantage.

Early on during the Atlanta Falcons - Green Bay Packers game, I said that the winner of the game would be the team who could control the pace. By that, I meant the team that could control the Momentum.

After cornerback Tramon Williams intercepted Matt Ryan in the endzone, Green Bay did just that: they controlled the Momentum. Rather than seeking a quick strike, Green Bay settled in and forced the game to slow down, causing the energy of the Georgia Dome and the Atlanta Falcons to fall into entropy.

The fans in the Georgia Dome and the Falcons had been focusing their energy on a high octane, fast-paced game, with 100% of their energy devoted to such. Once Green Bay forced the game to slow down, all of that energy became unallocated, which means the principle of entropy took effect. Atlanta was unable to shift their energy and re-allocate it quickly enough, and Matt Ryan’s second interception to Tramon Williams resulted in Williams returning the ball 70 yards for a touchdown, extending the Green Bay lead to 28-14 going into halftime.

Green Bay had full control of the game’s momentum at the end of the first half, and the only way Atlanta could have taken it back would have been to perform a Discontinuity on Green Bay of the kind that Green Bay was able to manifest on Atlanta.

Halftime may have provided the setting for a potential discontinuity, but Atlanta’s defense simply had no answer for Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packer passing attack: Atlanta had no capability to stop a dynamic passing game. Not even seemingly at will, the Packers marched up and down the field, coolly maintaining Momentum, maintaining possession, and maintaining the lead, as well as extending it.

Once again, I reiterate the vast importance of controlling Momentum in the NFL. Even FOX Sports’ announcer Troy Aikman said that, with four minutes left in the third quarter, the importance of the Packers’ controlling momentum after the 102-yard kickoff return touchdown by Atlanta’s Eric Weems could not be understated. Moments later, Green Bay scored their 35^th unanswered point, going up 42-14.

I said that Baltimore did not know how to win their game against Pittsburgh; here, I say that Atlanta did not know how to control Momentum; and that Atlanta did not know how to perform a Discontinuity on the Green Bay Packers.

Conversely, I said that the Pittsburgh Steelers knew how to win their game. Green Bay, then, knew how to control Momentum; and both how & when to enforce a Discontinuity over Atlanta to wrest control of Momentum’s Pendulum. As such, Green Bay was able to win convincingly, and the final score read Atlanta Falcons 21 - Green Bay Packers 48.