Alge Crumpler scored the first Falcons TD and spent the rest of the night opening holes for his teammates. AP

ATLANTA -- In the NFL postseason, there's always a place for a good running team. A team that, when nothing else goes right, can run over, run through, run around and, generally, run down the other guys.

The Falcons were the best running team in the NFL this season. And Saturday, after a couple of weeks of resting and, supposedly, rusting, they showed that they'll be hard to stop in the playoffs, too.

How do you want your medicine, guys?

Little Warrick Dunn, the toughest 180-pounder in the NFL, rushing through the line, busting outside and making you step all over your tongues?

Or bullish T.J. Duckett, maybe, 250-plus pounds of changeup, a back who seemingly seeks out defenders with the sole purpose of putting a ram-rodding helmet into their chests?

Or maybe you want to deal with quarterback Michael Vick? Even when Vick isn't running wild -- and he did Saturday in the Falcons' 47-17 runaway over the run-over Rams -- the threat of Vick is enough to free up Dunn and Duckett.

Yeah, the Falcons' running game can do the job in a lot of ways. And next week in the NFC Championship game, the Falcons will be coming right after whoever lines up across from them.

That is, after all, what they do.

"Running the ball kind of takes the heart out of them," said Falcons tight end Alge Crumpler, a key component of that Atlanta running game himself. "It's been the key to our game all season."

It's a bit strange, perhaps, that the best running game in the NFL (the Falcons averaged 167 yards a game) is spearheaded by a quarterback. But if you don't know by now that Vick is a running threat first, and a passer after that, you haven't been paying much attention.

Vick ran for 119 yards against the 29th-ranked run defense in the NFL on Saturday night, and his performance pretty much paled in comparison to his backfield mate, Dunn. The diminutive Dunn -- he's only 5-foot-9 -- ran for 142 yards on 17 carries and two touchdowns in the win. From the start, you could see that the Rams were completely overmatched.

Dunn ran four yards, right up the middle, on the game's first play. And on the game's third play, Vick rolled left looking to pass, cut up the middle, bolted to the right and picked up 47 yards.

That, pretty much, is how things went all night. At game's end, the Falcons had churned out 327 yards -- an average of 8.2 yards per carry -- in one of the most impressive team running performances in postseason history.

Just about everything the Falcons did behind their unheralded offensive line worked against the Rams. Dunn broke off a 62-yard touchdown run. Vick had his 47-yarder. Duckett, who had 15 carries for 66 yards (a paltry 4.4 yards a carry), had a 13-yard burst.

How bad was it for the Rams? Dunn had 106 yards ... in the first quarter. It was just about then, maybe even a little earlier, that the Rams knew they were in a heap of trouble.

"It just makes [a defense] lose confidence," said Falcons defensive end Patrick Kerney, who has been on the other end of a running game that can't be stopped. "It's like somebody pokes a hole in your heart and the blood just keeps running out. It's awful."

The Rams gave up 242 yards rushing to the Falcons in Week 2, so they knew what was coming. They practiced for it all week. And, still ...

"Whether it was Warrick Dunn slipping in here or there, or Vick with the bootleg," said Rams defensive end Leonard Little, "we worked against it all week. But we just couldn't stop them. Ain't no science to it. We just couldn't stop it."

The sizzling Vick, of course, is who makes it all happen. The 47-yard run was a designed rollout to his left, and when his receiver wasn't open, he simply improvised, bursting through the line and outrunning all but one defender.

The Falcons get Vick out of the pocket a lot, a strategy that spreads the defense and opens up a lot of holes along the front. That creates some huge running lanes for everyone else.

The threat of Vick -- sometimes even more than what he does with his feet -- simply ruins opposing defenses.

"Just having him on the field," said Duckett. "You always have to have someone, or even a few players, looking at him. And that helps out the whole team."

Running teams, it often has been said, are money come playoff time. When the weather turns bad, when the cold and wind begin to affect passers, a good running team always has a way to win.

The Falcons are a good running team. They've been the best all year.

Next Sunday, they'll see if that's enough to get them to the Super Bowl.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.