Rise Up Tonight | Week 8 2026 Season

It's Thursday night in the A. You know what that means. Kelly Price and Tori McElhaney is coming at you on Rise Up Tonight, presented by AT&T. We've only got a few days till Halloween, Atlanta. Spooky vibes around the A. But luckily for the Falcons fans, it's all treats, no tricks, coming off that big win on Sunday. Yes, so there ain't nothing scary about the way the Falcons played this past weekend. That part. Unless you're the 49ers. Ooh. Burn. The Falcons snap a two-game skid, pick up their first home dub, and give the 49ers their first blemish of the season. Let's huddle up about it, y'all. Let's huddle up with Kelly and Tori on the world of Falcons football. So I think we need to have a conversation, y'all. Michael Penix Jr. just had one of his best games as a pro. He's completed a season-high 73.5% of his pass attempts for 213 yards, three touchdowns, a 118.9 passer rating. It's the second straight game he's thrown three touchdown passes and no interceptions. But beyond the stats, he was decisive, efficient, patient against one of the best defenses in the league. And I thought he was really just kind of taking what the defense gave him, nothing crazy explosive. And that was a big step in his development. development that I think we kind of need to see. So big picture, this was his 17th start as a Falcon. That's now a full season sample size, Tori. Are we ready to start having a conversation about the franchise being confident in number nine being that guy going forward? Yeah, I think we have to. Look, there were a lot of questions this new leadership trio of Matt Ryan, Ian Cunningham, and Kevin Stefanski had to face this year. And I would argue none as important for how they move forward than deciding if Michael Penix Jr. was going to be a part of that future. And the way MPJ has been playing since his return. The stats say he absolutely could be. Jesse Bates III said just this week that not only are the Falcons a completely different team when number nine is in the pocket, but JB said, quote, that he really, really truly believes that Mike is a franchise quarterback. If he keeps progressing and developing the way that he has of late, particularly with this coaching staff, it's hard to see a world in which Michael Penix is not handed the reins. Yeah. Well, it's always easier to play the quarterback position well when you're untouched by the opposing defense, right? And that's exactly what happened for Penix on Sunday. No sacks, not even a single quarterback hit, which is a drastic difference than what we talked about just this time last week. So educate us, Tori. What was the difference in protection this week? Maybe more importantly, is it something that Atlanta can keep replicating on offense? Okay, Kelly, I don't know if you realize this, but the answer, I think, to your first question lies in something you said just a couple minutes ago. Alluding to the fact that Michael Penix was taking what the defense gave him. Yes, kudos to this offensive line for only allowing six pressures on 35 drop backs. But Mike himself plays a part in this too. I wanna pull up these two passing charts here in the next couple seconds. It's the one down below Mike against the 49ers. You will see when it pulls up a lot of short passes, dropping it off to his playmakers. You're looking at so many completions, either right behind the line of scrimmage, Or about just 10 yards beyond it, which is a lot different now comparing it to what he did a couple weeks ago against the Ravens. Look at how much of the field these passes are taking up 10 to 40 yards downfield, which means more time for these routes to develop longer spins in the pocket, more opportunities for pressure to get to him now. I know the Falcons were in a lot of third and longs in this Ravens game, but I think the principle of what we're talking about, this idea of Mike not having to do too much to still make this offense move, is showing up in many ways. And I think one of the reasons why protection held so well against the 49ers is because Mike was getting the ball out. There's some next-gen stats you can use for sure. All right, the next question now is, what's next? Yes, the Buccaneers are the next game. But, I mean, is this team going to do it again? Because this is the play we've seen before with the Falcons, right? The defense holds one of the team's best. best to their lowest points of the season. The offense looks like a well-oiled machine, the play calling and the game plan looks sharp, but for the most part, special teams did their thing. But here's the hard part, doing all that again and again and again. So if you're looking for a reason to get back on the bandwagon, maybe it's this. Against the Bears, right? The Falcons trailed 14 to three and we know how that ended. So against the Niners, it was the same story, but a different ending. Is that progress enough for you to kind of believe this time might be different? Here's where I land on this. I'm hopeful, but I'm not holding my breath. The Falcons have shown they're developing. They have shown that there is a lot to root for when it comes to them. But we've yet to see them kind of get off the emotional roller coaster of the season. Their highs are really high, routing Green Bay at Lambeau, defeating an undefeated 49ers team at home. But then there's the losses to a Lamar Jackson-less Ravens, a fourth-quarter scramble to try to catch up to the Bears' lead. This game against Tampa Bay is a chance to prove to everyone that the highs are more in line with who you are. Consistently, because that is the difference in the status of teams at the top of the league. Consistency. Yeah, that's a great, great point. Well, Halloween week brings one of my favorite Falcons community events of the year. Rookies visiting children's decked out for the season. Olivia Whitmire has that story as we rise up for Atlanta, brought to you by Truist. It's not every day you see a Penguin, Buzz Lightyear, or Mr. Incredible walk into Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, but those are just a few of the special visitors who made an appearance in the hospital hallways this week. It's been great to be able to give back and just be here with the kids. It means a lot to the kids, but it also means a lot to us. The Falcons rookies made the trip to Children's to help bring the spooky season spirit. The players got to dress up, play games, decorate pumpkins, and spend time with some of the hospital's patients, many of whom are battling cancer and blood disorders. A simple conversation can go a long way. You don't know how much that can impact somebody. Just me as a kid going through certain situations and experiences, somebody having a conversation with me that I look up to has stuck with me throughout my lifetime. So to be able to use my platform to do that is something that's pretty, pretty special. The trick-or-treating energy is a ton of fun, but of course the most important part of the day was building those connections with patients and their loved ones, a chance to bring a smile to someone's face and make a difference for families going through so much. That's what days like this are all about and what makes them so meaningful for this rookie class. One of the kids, he said, you know, there's like a YouTuber guy. His name's AJ Green. He said he's been watching me since then. That was when I was in high school. So, you know, it's pretty cool just to see that, you know, my things that I've been doing throughout my life have been able to impact him. You know, he said it actually made him want to continue playing football. You know, so that's pretty cool to know that I may not have met him at a certain time, you know, when he did get impacted. But to know that we all connected now and that little impact that I had, you know, helped him want to continue going in his journey as well. So that was pretty cool for me. You know, we grow up and we We really don't realize how much of an impact we have until we get here and see kids' reactions. So that's probably like seeing kids' reactions to seeing us. And we're their superheroes. It just means a lot. Days like this serve as a reminder to the Falcons that just because they might not always be dressed up like a superhero, that's how many people view them. And no matter who the player is dressed up as, a superhero, one of the Teletubbies, or maybe even a favorite movie character, the goal stayed the same, to bring joy to kids and families here in Atlanta. And I think it's safe to say, mission accomplished. Reporting in Atlanta, I'm Olivia Whitmire. All of those knock Falcons fits out of the park, including Olivia's there. Thanks. Coming up later in the show, we're going to make sure that you guys are the watch party queens with decor and balloons galore. Maxine Burton, founder of the world's largest balloon and coordinated gift supplier, Burton & Burton, joins us in the next. That's definitely a skill I'd like to learn about. What are some things the Falcons want to learn about, though? That story is coming up next on Rise Up Tonight. Rise Up Tonight is presented by AT&T and brought to you by Georgia Lottery. Today could be the day. By Mercedes-Benz, the best or nothing. And by Home Depot, how doers get more done. You ever wonder what's really on your favorite player's mind? It's time for the question of the week. What is a skill you've always wanted to learn? You know what, I would like to be able to speak a second language and I couldn't tell you, I mean probably took maybe four different Spanish classes, still can't figure it out. I'm still on no hablo español so. So... I would love to learn how to ice skate. I don't know what it is but ice skating is definitely gonna have to wait till I retire because my ankles definitely can't handle that. One skill. I wish I knew how to sing. One, two, three, four, five. One skill? I would say to be a NASCAR driver. Let's ride. I'm starting to speak now. Let's ride. Yeah. Dora, Dora, Dora. You know, I'm not normally a fan of AI slop, but that was an excellent use of AI by our producers. Chris Lindstrom as a figure skater, I never in a billion years thought that would be something we'd be looking at. Oh, that was incredible. I love the Blades of Glory situation that was going on there. All right, I always tell my daughter, if you don't feel good, just dress up, put a nice outfit on that's going to make you feel good. She's not even two yet, but you know what? It works for us all. It does. And, you know, when you put on a fun outfit, you do feel good. Easier to break out of a slump, just what the Falcons did on Sunday. Time now for Walk It In. Look at it. So longtime Rise Up Faithful know I'm a sucker for a good leather jacket, right? Yes. I'm a big fan of what Jawan Taylor has got going on here. Because can we also have a moment for the rhinestone studded belt buckle? Yeah. So is Jawan Taylor one of the front runners of the 2026 King of the Walking In segments? Because I feel like we feature him quite a bit. Yes. And he keeps coming up and showing up. We talked about consistency at the beginning of the show. This man is nothing if not consistent in the fashion department. All right. Next up, Jessie Bates, who now has 14 interceptions. Since coming here in 2023, third most in that span on top of the peanut punch. He has perfected week after week. It seems he perfected a preppy fall look here with this polo textured, this textured polo, this khakis is kind of giving. Jake from State Farm a little bit, but like elevated. You know, of all the things I thought that we would talk about today, an elevated Jake from State Farm look, khakis and all, was really not one of those things. What are you wearing? Khakis. All right, coming up next, have you ever wondered how you want to perfect a balloon arch or decor for your watch party or really any party that you're going to have? Maxine Burton hops in the nest to show us next. Welcome back to Rise Up Tonight. Let's head in the nest with Kelly, Tori, and this week's special guest. Brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. You guys, we are in the middle of the party, clearly here with this week's in the nest guests as the Falcons go on the road and you want to host a really awesome tailgate party or watch party. Burton and Burton is going to have you covered. I'm here with Maxine Burton of Burton and Burton. Everything you can see here is something you can get from you guys. And I want to actually talk about the business. You started this 45 years ago. We were talking about, it's pretty crazy. I know, especially I'm only 46. What kind What started you in this industry and why did you want to start your own business doing this? I like to eat. Don't we all. So I wanted a new home so I decided I needed a business in order to do that and we already had a business. So my husband was already in the floral business, he had a wholesale florist that he was partners in. Okay. And I was looking for something that would relate to that business and balloons were new, the floating balloons, so I decided that that would be a good product to sell to flower shops. What was it like to kind of expand this business? Oh it's just amazing all the changes. It's been so interesting being in a business that you have been shaping, helping shape the industry and just be able to see it grow into an industry because people thought it was just a fad at the time when I started the business and I don't think anything would be, anyone would say it's a fad now. Walk me through kind of the idea of some of these things that you, like a vase, that you maybe would use in different ways. We have these items for also like basketball and soccer and other things so you can kind of apply this to other sports as well so when you get through your... football season you can take an adapt this to basketball absolutely so here we have some planners and you see I have a beautiful flower arrangement here yeah my football arrangement and then the same a planner we're using here to hold our napkins and then we have the smaller version of the planner that we put our silverware in so smart and then we have this stadium which is a chip and dip So, we have our dip and our little football, and then we have our chips and our nice stadium here. I love that place. And then we took a planter here and we put our soft drinks in, so you can have that on your table. So, all of these can be things that you could use. You could use these for plants when you're not using it for your drinks. Sure. And we also added some beautiful ribbon onto the side to give you a little bit more color. We went to the hardware store and bought some artificial turf. For our grass. And also, the most important thing, we have to have our balloons. Of course. So we've got our football balloons here. We've got our little football here, and we have this little stand that you can just hook it into. And this is just an air inflated balloon. I love that. So that you don't have to have the whole hanging situation. So easy. You can have it on your table. And then also, you notice that I have a football mug here. We also have these for other sports as well. And we put a lot of little straws in here. You could put other kind of party items in there. or you can use it to drink I love We've got some helium-filled balloons, which is really nice, with all of our Falcon balloons here and some regular football balloons to go. And one of the things I want to show you, too, is also our new Bella Balloon Plus. Yeah, I'm really excited about learning about those. First self-sealing latex balloon ever on the market. And so I'm just going to pump one by air, but these are great when you're doing helium. So, okay, I'm just going to inflate this really quickly. I didn't want to bring my electric pump, because electric pump does much better. You know, one of the things I think people hate about latex balloons is the fact of having to tie it. But look at this. That's incredible. So this is really quick when you're doing your party decorating. Oh, my God. One of the little portable helium tanks. Yeah, inflate. Tie the ribbon, and you're already done. Do you know how many years out of my life I've lost having to do those ties at bachelorette parties and all those things? That would have saved my life so many times. I wish I had. Well, we're going to leave some back for you today so that we're going to save your life. That is incredible. And I just want to point out one other thing that I just love is we have these little football clusters. Oh, I know. I'm obsessed with those. You can see those. You can see them up front. They're so cute. And also, they decorate your table. And besides just decorating your table, they're a great party favor. Oh, sorry. children at the party and if you don't have a great idea and then if you have parents there and they want to take something home to the children because they've been to the party. When you're putting together a whether it's a tailgate party or any kind of event like where do you kind of start what's the first thing is that you kind of buy one thing that you're like okay I'm going to kind of base everything off of this is it the colors you start with where do you kind of start when you're trying to conceptualize what you want to do. Well, I just, you know, I like to entertain, so I just think about what's my theme going to be. And so I think about my theme. So with Falcons, it's going to be red and black, right? So we've got to surround it. It's also going to be football, so I've got to figure out what all can I do for football and how can I accent all the football items without it being just football. So we've got the turf because football is played on the grass. Also we've got the craft paper to kind of give us some other color. And so I just kind of think about. about things like that. I do a lot of Christmas parties. I'm known for my parties in Athens, so I just love to entertain. And I like to also, when I'm accessorizing, I like to have different heights. So you can see how we did. We did pedestals to make sure that we have different things on different levels. And so it's not everything just flat on the ground. So I think that's very important. Yeah, to have some different height there, yeah. So like I mentioned, everything here is Burton & Burton available through you guys. Where can people go buy that? Is it on your website? Are there stores that they can go to? How can people access it? Well, we sell to most flower shops. We sell to most hospital gift shops. We sell to grocery stores. Kroger is one of our big accounts. But we have a lot of other grocery stores that buy from us. So if you go in. We sell, we're going to be selling, you can find a lot of our things on Amazon as well. Oh, okay, perfect. And the available ones, you can find the balloons on Amazon. Yeah, I'm going to definitely have to be investing in those. Those are awesome. Well, thanks so much for walking us through this. I'm sure Falcons fans are going to appreciate some ideas. Sometimes you just don't know where to start, and you gave us a great kind of blueprint of where to start. Thanks so much for being here, Maxine. I really appreciate it. And, yeah, you guys can take this to your watch party at home. But for now, we'll be right back on Rise Up Tonight. Hey Atlanta, this is Head Crack talking, and you're watching Rise Up Tonight, presented by AT&T. What is our master? What chooses who will go and who will stay? I have been chosen. The ATLans were cracking me up, and my favorite was when Kendall Daniels brought his interception celebration into the end zone, and they were like all right there, and they were all so... I saw another post on social that was like, no context NFL, and it's just the Falcons defense with these aliens. And it's like, you had no clue that it was A.T. Aliens night. What's happening? Are they getting taken through the roof? Right, yeah. That's open. We have no clue. All right, Tori, I saw you tweet something really interesting earlier this week. Each of the last six games between the Falcons and Bucs have been decided for six or fewer points, the longest active streak in any NFL matchup. So peak NFL's, NFC South thing right there. 100%. So this is an interesting one, because I'm not sure anyone, including the Bucs, know exactly who they are right now. They don't feel like a 2-5 team. They just got Baker Mayfield back from injury. They beat the Panthers by 30, but only 64 passing yards. So they rushed for 258. I don't think they're going to do that against the Falcons. So what do you think is kind of the key matchup here? To me, this game is all about how much more the Bucs rely on Baker. The fact of the matter is that the Panthers have one of the lowest-ranking run defenses in the league, and they've struggled to stop the run against pretty much everyone. So the Bucs' game plan was simple. We're going to run it, see if you can stop us. The Panthers couldn't. So they didn't need Baker to do more. But if the Falcons can take the run away, force Baker into some obvious passing downs, let's see if he has to knock off some rust. And if he is rusty, can the Falcons take advantage of that? Yeah, we'll see if they can do it Sunday in Tampa. Who walks the plank Sunday in Tampa Bay the day after Halloween? We'll be talking about it Sunday night on the Dirty Bird Report. But for now, thanks for staying up late with us here on a Thursday. For Tori McElhaney, I'm Kelly Price. Good night.