Winning ugly

Falcons look unspectacular but get job done in 24-17 win

ATLANTA -- In time, the Atlanta Falcons will forget about the penalties, the dropped passes and the missed opportunities. They won't care that they scored their first touchdown only because a New Orleans defender slipped and fell down in pass coverage or that their second touchdown came on a play in which quarterback Michael Vick might have stepped out of bounds.

Gone too will be the fact that they had just four pass completions at halftime -- only one to a wide receiver -- and that they were dented for two fourth-quarter touchdowns and needed to recover an onside kick in the final minute to stave off the Saints.

All that will linger about Sunday afternoon at the sold-out Georgia Dome is this: The Falcons needed to win -- any way, any how -- for their playoff dreams to start coming into focus, to bridge that chasm that separates postseason hopeful from legitimate contender. And they got it done, decisively enough by today's NFL standards.

Atlanta's 24-17 conquest of New Orleans wasn't the kind of win you savor as much as survive. It was more effective than elegant, but the still-taking-flight Falcons would take another half-dozen just like this one -- no questions asked.

All that matters is that Atlanta hasn't lost in six weeks, and the Falcons are heading for a very meaningful December. If this one wasn't for the scrapbook, so be it. It looks just fine in the standings.

"Now the [media] can continue talking about '98, and we'll start talking about 2002 and thinking about the 2003 Super Bowl," said Falcons veteran cornerback Ray Buchanan, referencing the franchise's only Super Bowl season. "Right now we're creating the atmosphere everybody wants to be a part of. And if we continue to play like we've been playing, there's only going to be good things happening to this football team."

Unbeaten in their past six games (5-0-1) and firmly in control of the NFC's sixth and final playoff spot, the Falcons (6-3-1) have some unmistakable mojo building. By the time they return to the Georgia Dome a month from now -- after a looming three-game road trip to Carolina, Minnesota and Tampa Bay -- the Falcons could be in relatively rarified air by the standards of this long-suffering franchise.

"A lot of these guys weren't even here in '98, but I'm not too old to remember three or four years ago, when this was happening for this organization," Buchanan said. "And the same thing is happening now. History is repeating itself."

That's a mouthful given that Atlanta's 1998 Dirty Birds posted a 14-2 record and went to Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami. But Sunday's win -- built around some stout Falcons defense and just enough Vick heroics to get the job done -- has this city starting to believe in its football team once again.

After all, Atlanta isn't just thinking wild card at this point. Given that the Falcons moved to within a half-game of second-place New Orleans (7-3) and have beaten the Saints twice already, NFC South-leading Tampa Bay (8-2) is still catchable -- which wouldn't have been the case had the Falcons not taken care of business Sunday.

"I can't put [this victory] into words," said Falcons linebacker Keith Brooking of the franchise's biggest win since that 1998 season. "We have overcome so much after starting out slowly. Now we're in the driver's seat."

Though the Falcons owed Sunday's win as much to an aggressive defense that had something to prove after last week's yardage-fest in Pittsburgh, the man behind the wheel of this Atlanta team is unquestionably Vick. No. 7's ability to make just three big plays against the Saints -- but have them produce 21 points -- was the difference between big-game expectations met and big-game expectations dashed.

Vick threw a career-best 74-yard touchdown pass to third-year receiver Trevor Gaylor in the first half, sacrificed his body to score on a 7-yard gravity-defying run in the third quarter and capped the Falcons' scoring with a 4-yard touchdown pass to tight end Alge Crumpler with 3:56 remaining in the game.

His final numbers were a ho-hum 11-of-23 for 160 yards with one interception, two touchdowns and three sacks. On the run, he gained 55 yards on seven carries, including the touchdown. But it added up to victory when the Falcons could least afford failure in front of 70,000 potential believers.

"Mike is going to keep doing what he's doing," Buchanan said. "Mike is like Michael Jordan right now. He's creating a lot of different plays. You don't know if the guy's going to throw the football. You don't know if he's going to run the football. You don't know if he's going to dump the ball off.

"You can't contain the guy. Every defense has been trying to say, 'OK, this is what we're going to do against Mike.' But nothing seems to work, so you just have to go out there and play sandlot football whenever you step out on that field."

Vick wasn't doing his MJ impersonation early on. He was just 4-of-13 in the first half with only the 74-yard scoring bomb to Gaylor keeping the teams from a scoreless tie at the break. His touch had disappeared -- as it has been prone to do from time to time -- and he was drilling balls into the turf or whizzing them past his receivers with too much mustard.

But he persevered, steadying his game in the second half the way his Falcons have done after their discouraging 1-3 start.

"We're getting better and better," Vick said. "How far we can go is up to how far we want to go. We've got to continue to work hard, and we can't lose sight of what has basically got us five wins in a row, or five wins and a tie.

"When we started off 1-3, we just pulled together as a team. We all said to each other, 'We're just too good and have got too much talent to let ourselves go down the drain.' That was something we just weren't going to let happen."

After the game, Vick's work still wasn't done. Having convinced the league of Atlanta's legitimacy, he had one more message to deliver. This time, it was a voice-mail message to record, thanking the Falcons' 50,000 or so season-ticket holders for the support of their hearts and lungs Sunday against New Orleans. It would be waiting for Atlanta fans on their home recorders -- just like his Friday afternoon missive that asked them to show up loud and proud for the showdown against the Saints.

If this keeps up, and Atlanta's playoff chase gives way to playoff games, that's the kind of call that Vick and the rest of the Falcons could get used to making.

 

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