The Green Bay Packers’ head coach Matt LaFleur said his team got a “butt-whooping” as they lost 35-14 at home to the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday.

The Packers were booed by their own fans as they were well beaten by a Falcons team that lost 34-3 at home to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday.

Although a depleted Green Bay opened the scoring at Lambeau Field, the Falcons hit back with 27 unanswered points.

Their 498 yards on offence included 242 rushing yards, while Green Bay’s total 328 yards featured just 17 from nine carries.

“They had 500 yards of offence, we had whatever it was – it was a butt-whooping,” said LaFleur.

“I’m not going to put it on one thing. We definitely have to respond better but that was at least a three-quarter butt-whooping right there.”

The Falcons’ offence struggled as they lost their first two games of the NFL season but quarterback Michael Penix Jr’s return from knee surgery helped them bounce back.

Running back Bijan Robinson rushed for two touchdowns and 194 yards, and added 19 receiving yards, while Drake London racked up 194 receiving yards from just nine catches.

The Packers were already without defensive star Micah Parsons and running back Josh Jacobs but lost two offensive linemen to injury in last week’s win at the New York Jets.

Although the hosts took the lead through a Christian Watson touchdown, the Falcons then took charge with Bijan Robinson, Austin Hooper and Brian Robinson Jr all getting into the endzone while Nick Folk added two field goals.

Matthew Golden’s touchdown stopped the rot for the Packers but Bijan Robinson claimed his second score late on to seal an emphatic win for the Falcons.

Both teams now have a 1-2 record, with Green Bay visiting Tampa Bay next Sunday while Atlanta travel to divisional rivals New Orleans a week on Monday.

“It’s crazy when you think about it,” says Ryan Cardwell, former youth scout at Liverpool and Southampton.

“In what other kind of world would 15 and 16-year-olds be spoken about in the media like this?”

This summer alone, all six of the Premier League’s wealthiest clubs either signed a highly-rated academy player from another, or lost a youngster to a direct rival.

“It is such a competitive market,” Cardwell explains. “There are now tens of transfers between the elite academies every summer, when it used to be the case that if you were already at one of those, you would likely stay the course.

“The race for talent is huge – you look at what teams are spending on transfers for senior players and it’s enormous, so if you can spot a player earlier and offset some of that financial risk, you’re going to do so.”

Some inside football claim that the transfer of Rio Ngumoha – the now 18-year-old winger who was called up to this month’s senior England squad – from Chelsea to Liverpool at the age of 15 in 2024 ushered in a new era of competition for academy players among the nation’s elite.

One of the major factors is Brexit. Before 2021 English clubs were allowed to sign academy players over the age of 16 who held European Union passports.

Since the UK left the EU, foreign players cannot join English clubs until they reach 18.

“Heathrow and Gatwick [airports] on a Friday night were inundated with scouts going to other countries to look for young players”, says Caldwell.

“Belgium and the Netherlands were full of scouts for Premier League clubs.

“Now it’s the competition between English clubs that has increased, looking at each other’s players, including the old-school ‘top six’ but also the likes of Southampton, Aston Villa, and Fulham.”

Young players have further added financial value – youth signings don’t count towards the Premier League’s squad cost ratio rules, and any future sale counts as ‘pure profit’ in club accounts.

Advances in video technology and data analysis mean more young players are being identified, tracked and approached by rival clubs than ever before.