The Morning TiltFriday, September 25, 2026

The Falcons won by three scores at Lambeau Field and the Braves lost by one at Truist Park. Nothing else in this city moves until a 7:10 first pitch in Miami tonight.

Braves

Cincinnati 7, Atlanta 6, at Truist Park. Atlanta scored four runs in the first inning and two across the eight that followed, and out-hit the Reds 12 to 7 on the way to losing. AJ Smith-Shawver took the loss, Emilio Pagán closed it for Cincinnati.

A four-run first inning is usually the story of the game. Thursday it was the opening paragraph of a different one.

The transaction feed is where Thursday actually went. Atlanta placed left-hander Martín Pérez on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to September 21, with low back inflammation. That is the entire document, and the date inside it is the load-bearing part. The same feed moved another Atlanta pitcher onto a longer list the same day, with nothing from the club about how long. Ellis has the date on the paperwork, and what five published accounts of the same move did with it.

Atlanta are 93-66 with the East long since clinched. Three games are left, all of them at loanDepot park — 7:10 tonight, 4:10 Saturday, 3:10 Sunday. Miami list Eury Pérez for the first of them. MLB's schedule carries no Atlanta starter beside him yet.

Then the regular season is finished, and the Wild Card Series opens Tuesday, September 29 — October, starting in September. MLB's own postseason schedule still gives it no first-pitch time.

Falcons

Falcons 35, Packers 14, at Lambeau Field on Thursday night. A road win, in Green Bay's home opener, in front of 76,955.

Read as rows rather than as a record, the three weeks go: a seven-point loss at Pittsburgh, a 31-point loss at home to Carolina, a 21-point win in Wisconsin. That is 1-2, and it is Atlanta's first win of the year. It also puts Atlanta third in the NFC South, on three games played against two apiece for everybody else in it. Nothing in that sequence is a trend yet.

Miles has the defence that sacked Jordan Love once and won by three scores anyway. Dex has the four calls of his own that came due at Lambeau, and what Friday morning's coverage of the game decided to be about.

New Orleans is next, Monday, October 5, 8:15 PM ET at the Caesars Superdome. Atlanta played their first three games across 12 days and now wait 10 for the fourth, which is a long time to hold on to one result.

Hawks

Bob Pettit died on Wednesday, at 93.

He played 11 seasons and every one of them was for this franchise — a first-round pick of the Milwaukee Hawks in 1954, moved with the club to St. Louis the next year, retired in 1965. The Most Valuable Player award did not exist until his second season. He won the first one, in 1956, and another in 1959. He was the first player in league history past 20,000 career points, and he finished with 20,880. He took this franchise to four NBA Finals and won it its only championship, in St. Louis, in 1958. His No. 9 is retired, and it hangs at State Farm Arena. The Hall of Fame took him in 1970.

The Hawks put out a statement on Thursday. It is short, and the thing it points at is the jersey.

Simone has the inheritance, and hers is the better read on what this city actually holds of him. Media day is Monday morning. The next basketball is a preseason game in October.

Atlanta United

New York City FC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, 7:30 PM ET, on Apple TV. Atlanta are at home, with eight matches left — counting the 26 already played against a 34-match season.

The Falcons will not be back in that building until October 11. Until then it belongs to this team. Every other Atlanta fixture this weekend is somewhere else.

Tito has the match, and the number he thinks settled this season long before Saturday arrived.

One more thing.

Sort this morning by how long each item stays true, and it sorts strangely.

Atlanta United's row survives until Saturday night. The Braves' three remaining games run out on Sunday. Martín Pérez's 15-day clock expires on a date the paperwork has already picked. A 1-2 record has 14 games left to bury it. Four items in order of shelf life, and every one of them has the date that ends it written down somewhere already. That is most of what a Friday in late September is — a page of things whose endings are on the schedule.

And then a retired No. 9 at State Farm Arena, hung for a man who died on Wednesday, with nothing on any of the four schedules that does a thing to it.