Let the track meet begin. You have to go back to Week 13 to find a game where either of these teams scored under 30 points. And neither team has much of a defense. The Falcons averaged a league-high 34 points in the regular season. Other than one poor game at Philadelphia, the offense has scored 59 touchdowns in its last 15 games – just short of 4 per week.

In the regular season, only 10 defenses allowed more yards than the Packers, and only 11 allowed more points. So this has shootout written all over it. The over-under might set a record. It’s sitting at 61 right now (with the Falcons favored by 4). When these teams played in Week 8, the Falcons won 33-32 in the Georgia Dome. Oddly that game wasn’t quite as much of a free for all as the score suggests. The Falcons finished with 90 rushing and 288 passing yards – modest numbers for them. The Packers finished with 108 rushing and 246 passing yards (below average yards for them as well). We expect more offense in this one, with the over probably more likely than the under on that 61-point line.

QUARTERBACK: Matt Ryan looks awfully strong right now. He was phenomenal in the regular season, averaging 309 passing yards and completing 70 percent of his passes, with 38 TDs versus only 7 interceptions. He just shredded a good Seattle defense for 338 yards and 3 TDs. Now he gets to go against a Green Bay secondary that’s been struggling for most of the year, in part because of injury issues at cornerback. The Packers allowed more passing yards than any other team in the regular season, and only two teams allowed more touchdown passes. Including the postseason they’re at 36 TDs in 18 games – 2 per week. So this is very much an above-average situation, meaning Ryan will probably finish with something north of 300 yards, with 3 TD passes more likely than 2. Makes sense to rank him ahead of Tom Brady, who’s facing a tougher defense. We’re ranking Ryan behind Aaron Rodgers because with the Packers quarterback, you also get some rushing production. The Packers are also less likely to score touchdowns on running plays. But looking purely at passing numbers, Ryan should be right there with Rodgers.

RUNNING BACK: Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman are the best one-two punch of running backs in the league. They put up a combined 2,482 run-rec yards and 24 TDs in the regular season. They’re both effective runners and pass catchers. Freeman is the starter and tends to get a little more work, while Coleman is faster and more explosive – he was the more effective as a runner last week, running really aggressively against the Seahawks. Freeman is more experienced and has a better feel for the passing game (while Coleman caught a touchdown last week, they’re not using him as much as a receiver as they were early in the season). Coleman missed about a month with a hamstring injury, but both backs are healthy now. In their last six games, Freeman has averaged 58 rushing and 32 receiving yards, with 7 TDs. Coleman has averaged 46 rushing and 15 receiving yards in those games, with 5 TDs. That’s their typical kind of production. Makes sense to project them a little lower this week because Green Bay has been much better against the run – 9th in the regular season. It’s not a shutdown group and the Falcons are capable of running for big numbers against anyone, but Atlanta didn’t run it very well in the earlier game. Coleman was sitting out, and Freeman carried 11 times for only 35 yards. But Freeman ran for a touchdown and also caught 4 passes for 23 yards and another touchdown. They got their most effective running on that Sunday out of Terron Ward, who filled in for Coleman and carried 6 times for 46 yards. Only slight worry here is that the Packers maybe hit on touchdowns on their first 2-3 drives, with the Falcons getting frazzled and starting to pass more than usual. But matchup looks fine. In the regular season Freeman-Coleman averaged a combined 155 run-rec yards and 1.5 TDs per game, and they have a decent chance of hitting that kind of total.

WIDE RECEIVER: If one receiver this week is going to really hit it big – as in 140-plus yards – it will probably be Julio Jones. He’s an uber-talented guy, and he’s facing a defense that has issues at cornerback. Dez Bryant went for 132 yards and 2 TDs against this group last week. In the regular season, two different receivers went over 200 yards against this secondary, and both were regular-type receivers who finished with fewer than 1,000 yards – Marvin Jones and Adam Thielen. On the other hand, a couple of high-profile pass catchers have come up remarkably small against this secondary, most recently Odell Beckham Jr. catching 4 passes for 28 yards. Jones was supposed to shred the Packers back in Week 8 and instead had one of his quietest games, with 3 catches for 29 yards. Troubling with Jones is the reality that he doesn’t tend to be a big focus of their offense inside the red zone. He caught a short touchdown last week against Seattle, but they typically don’t feature him in that area. Setting aside two games he missed, he’s caught only 7 of their 36 TD passes – just under 20 percent. So if you were to figure that Matt Ryan were going to throw 2-3 TDs, with three more likely, that would make Jones only about a 50-50 proposition to score. He’s averaged 98 yards in 15 games, however, and those big games have shown up – four with over 130 yards. … Taylor Gabriel has carved out a consistent role in this offense. It was in the earlier Green Bay game, recall, that Gabriel first emerged catching a 47-yard touchdown, and they’ve been using him regularly since. He’s averaged 60 receiving yards in his last nine games, with 7 TDs. So statistically, he’s been a little better than Jones during this run (Jones has averaged 81 yards in his last eight games, with 3 TDs). Not a huge difference between these receivers. Jones is more talented, but Gabriel is really explosive and sees more favorable coverages. … Mohamed Sanu has scored two weeks in a row. So there’s that. But considering the size of the contract they signed him to, he’s been a disappointment. In 16 games, he’s caught 63 passes for 697 yards and 5 TDs. That’s pretty nominal production, considering Matt Ryan averaged 309 passing yards in the regular season, with 38 TDs. Sanu is pretty slow, so they use him mostly as a possession receiver. Best we can say on his behalf is that his best game of the season came in the earlier Packers game – 9 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown. But unlikely to be a big factor. … The Falcons have a few other wide receivers who’ll get on the field, but they’re very much bottom-of-the-barrel type guys – Justin Hardy and Aldrick Robinson. They both caught 20-21 passes in the regular season. Hardy has caught 2 TDs in his last 14 games, and both came when either Jones or Gabriel was sitting out. Robinson has also caught 2 TDs in his last 14.

TIGHT END: The Falcons don’t have a viable tight end. They drafted Austin Hooper in the third round, and he was a pass catcher at Stanford, so maybe some day he develops into a top-10 player this position. But he’s only 22 and it isn’t happening this year. He was hardly playing at the start of the season. Since Jacob Tamme got hurt, Hooper has caught 9 passes for 86 yards and 2 TDs in seven games. Their other Stanford tight end, Levine Toilolo, plays more because he’s a bigger, better blocker. They don’t use Toilolo much in the passing game, but because he’s such an unlikely receiving threat, they’ve had some success sneaking him deep for some nice gains. Toilolo has caught 7 passes for 177 yards and a touchdown in those same seven games post-Tamme. Toilolo caught 2 passes for 26 yards last week, with an ugly drop on a ball down near the goal line.

KICKER: Matt Bryant is having a big year. He scored 158 points in the regular season – 31-plus more than any of the other kickers still playing. He’ll be kicking indoors, where there are no weather concerns. But the Patriots look like a safer choice to win, and there might be more field goal potential in that game. There could be more trading of touchdowns in this one, so we’re slotting Bryant as the No. 2 kicker on the board.

On the rankings below, I’m assuming standard scoring. You’re looking at receiving and rushing yards. For total yards, that includes rushing, receiving and passing. For touchdowns, that’s all scores – pass, run, rec and returns. Fantasy points assume 1 for every 10 run/rec yards, 1 for every 20 passing, 6 points for TDs and 4 for TD passes.

—Ian Allan