The New Orleans Saints didn’t save their season on Thursday night. That still remains pretty well buried under the team’s 1-4 start. But New Orleans did take a step in the right direction with their most complete performance of the season.

The Saints continued another unpredictable season of Thursday Night Football by flat out dominating one of the league’s six unbeaten teams, the Atlanta Falcons en route to a 31-21 victory at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, on a night where everything clicked.

Drew Brees had one of his best performances of the season, completing 30-of-39 passes, for 312 yards and a touchdown and no interceptions. Tight end Benjamin Watson had a career night, hauling in 10 of those 30 completions for 127 yards, including Brees lone TD pass. Mark Ingram was limited to just 2.3 yards per carry on his 20 rushes, but showed up when the Saints needed him for two goal line touchdown plunges.

But while the Saints getting their offense rolling was vital to this victory, the most crucial part was that they complemented it with outstanding play on defense and special teams. Rob Ryan’s much maligned defense had Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan under duress seemingly all night and sacked him five times. Though they couldn’t coax Ryan into an interception with all that pressure, they did force five total fumbles, and recovered three of those.  

Perhaps the biggest play of the game for New Orleans fittingly came on special teams. With former Saints special teamer Steve Gleason, who has been stricken with ALS and is now confined to a wheelchair, in attendance and watching from the Saints sidelines, another Saints special teamer, Michael Mauti, blocked the punt of Atlanta’s Matt Bosher, scooped up the loose ball and scored to give New Orleans a 14-0 lead.

Mauti, a New Orleans native who signed with the Saints this offseason after two years in Minnesota, was one of the many displaced by Hurricane Katrina and who turned to football for a much-needed distraction. Gleason’s block of Falcons punter Michael Koenen back in September of 2006, in the first game played at the Superdome in nearly two years post-Katrina, helped to galvanize the community behind the team. So for Mauti to make that play with Gleason on the sidelines was quite the memorable moment.

“I get goose bumps when I think about it, just a numbing sound. I have always looked up to Steve Gleason; he’s a hero of mine. It’s so special that he got to be here, and I grew up wanting to be like him,” Mauti told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “This has always been a dream of mine, playing in the NFL anywhere, but if you would have asked me three months ago I wouldn’t have told you I’d be here. You never know how the story is going to play out. You just keep working and see what happens.”

That’s what the Saints are left to do as well. A 1-4 start placed them in dire straits in a NFC South division that suddenly boasts two of the best teams in the conference this season. But knocking the Falcons from their undefeated perch was a step in the right direction, and when 11 weeks of football left to be played, a lot can change.

Perhaps New Orleans can build off this win. Or perhaps the momentum quickly goes by the wayside, as it did after their first win over Dallas on Sunday Night Football in Week 4. But for the Saints to avoid the tough rebuilding questions that had started to loom over them and had many fearing for their jobs. They’ll simply have find a way to keep winning.

FALCONS FALTER

On the flip side of the coin on Thursday night, you had a Falcons team that played to the level many expected of them all season, looking sparsely like the team that began the 2015 season by reeling off five straight wins.

The vaunted Atlanta offense repeatedly failed to break through against a Saints defense that allowed more than 500 yards of total offense to the Philadelphia Eagles just four days earlier. When they did manage to get something going, signs of the old Falcons flashed and mistakes cost them multiple opportunities to get back in the game.

This was particularly true in the first half, where, outside of an outstanding nine-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to pull within seven, Atlanta’s drives almost exclusively ended in disaster. The Falcons’ opening drive came to a close when Ryan fumbled a fourth down snap and did all he could just to recover the loose ball, turning it over to the Saints on downs anyway. Then there was the blocked punt, which gave New Orleans a 14-0 lead.

Atlanta bounced back from that with an excellent drive early in the second quarter, capped by a seven-yard touchdown pass from Ryan to Roddy White. But they couldn’t build on it thanks to a few more mistakes. After the defense stopped the Saints on their next drive, Atlanta marched into New Orleans territory, seemingly primed to tie the game. Rookie Tevin Coleman then broke off a big run on 2nd-and-6 from the 26, but the play ended in disaster when Coleman coughed up the ball and it was recovered by Brandon Browner at the New Orleans nine-yard-line.

The Falcons defense stepped up to force another three-and-out and the Atlanta offense again quickly marched into New Orleans territory, getting all the way down to the 14. But on 3rd-and-8 from there, a botched snap put the ball on the ground and Dannell Ellerbe recovered it to give the Saints possession again. New Orleans couldn’t capitalize with points, but did enough to maintain their 14-7 halftime lead.

After making so much progress late in the first half and having it bear so little fruit, the Falcons offense came out flat to start the second half and the Saints took advantage. After the New Orleans defense shut down Atlanta’s opening drive of the half, the Saints moved the ball down the field and tacked on to their lead with a field goal. The Falcons offense followed with a quick three-and-out and on the gassed Atlanta defense yielded a 10-play, 63-yard drive to Brees and the Saints offense, culminating in a two-yard touchdown pass to Watson that made it 24-7 with 2:23 left in the third.

That was essentially all she wrote for the Falcons. The offense got moving early in the fourth and a brilliant 25-yard scoring run by Devonta Freeman, who continued to shine with 100 rushing yards on just 13 carries, made it a 24-14 game. But New Orleans came back with a scoring drive of their own, draining five minutes off the clock in the process. When Mark Ingram plunged in with 8:02 left to make it 31-14, the game was essentially on ice.

Ryan was then sacked on back to back plays to close Atlanta’s ensuing drive to really put the game away. That Atlanta offense managed one more garbage time score, another Freeman touchdown run, to make the score look more respectable. But the game could be summarized in Atlanta’s final offensive play, which came with 24 seconds left after a New Orleans three-and out. Ryan dropped back to pass and was swallowed up by Saints defensive end Cam Jordan. Ryan fumbled, Jordan fell on it, and that spelled the true end for Atlanta.

Thursday night’s game exposed flaws in the Falcons that were already visible if you didn’t allow yourself to get caught up in the record. Their offensive line, while doing better in their zone blocking scheme to facilitate the run, is still populated by a few mediocre at best pass protectors and that’s gonna make things tough on Matt Ryan.

The Atlanta passing attack itself, while strong, needs Julio Jones at 100 percent, and he’s clearly not there right now, despite hauling in six passes for 93 yards. Against this Saints defense, he probably should have been able to double that. But as limited as he is by his leg ailments, the Falcons were luck to get what they did out of him.

And finally the Atlanta defense is far from a finished product. They’d used a lot of smoke and mirrors to get by beating mostly mediocre teams with quarterback questions in the first five weeks of the season, but Brees and the Saints exposed them and laid out the blueprint for other offenses to do the same. It will be interesting to see how the Falcons bounce back from this. They’re still in a good spot and their schedule is incredibly soft through their bye. But they’ll need to get back to doing what they were before this week to win even those games.

OFFICIAL SUSPENDED FOR MONDAY NIGHT CLOCK ERROR

After an investigation into why 18 seconds vanished off the clock late in Monday night’s Steelers-Chargers game, the NFL has suspended side judge Rob Vernatchi for Week 6.

“Side judge Rob Vernatchi will not officiate in Week 6 as a result of the failure to notice that the game clock was incorrectly started late in the fourth quarter of Monday night’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Diego Chargers,” the league said in a statement “The mistake will also impact the evaluation of the other six members of the officiating crew, led by referee Pete Morelli.”

The mistake came on the heels of another egregious error by the officials the previous Monday night when they failed to enforce the batted ball rule in the end zone, which likely would have change the result of the game. Fortunately for the league, the clock mistake in San Diego had no bearing on the outcome of the game on Monday night, as Le’Veon Bell managed to beat the buzzer with a touchdown run to get the officials off the hook. However, the NFL still felt the need to send a message that such mistakes will not be taken lightly.

“The official game time is kept on the stadium scoreboard, but it is the responsibility of the side judge to supervise the timing of the game,” read the statement. “Had the side judge or any of the other six on-field officials noticed the timing error, they could have corrected it.”

The league provided no update on the status of the clock operator in San Diego, who is also a NFL employee, but a punishment may be forthcoming there as well.