NFL atlanta Falcons

The players have the day off at Flowery Branch as Tuesday is a normal rest-day for the Falcons. But that didn't stop the team from bringing in four kickers to see if any of them might do a better job than Jason Elam.

Elam has been uncharacteristically off-center this season. He's connected on 10-of-16 field goal attempts for a career-worst 62.5% field goal percentage. He's also missed an extra point, an occurrence that's only happened three other times in his 17-year career.

Steve Hauschka, Sam Swank, Brandon Coutu and Shane Andrus we're all kicking today for the coaching staff. No news is known at this time whether any made an impression.

After starting the season with four wins and only one loss, the Atlanta Falcons have lost four times in their last five games and see themselves sitting on the outside of the playoff picture, looking in. At 5-5, the Falcons have a lot of work to do to ensure a spot in the post-season, but the team hasn't given up yet and they have a favorable schedule ahead to work with.

Head Coach Mike Smith spent time in the locker room after a Sunday loss to the New York Giants talking about the tough stretch the Falcons have gone through and how the Falcons play four of their final six games in the friendly Georgia Dome, a place where they haven't lost all season. "What I told our team is that we've been through a long road in terms of the last six weeks", said Smith. "Four out of the six games we've played have been against teams that have been coming off the byes. I also told them that we are looking forward to having a three-game home stand."

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Man, you really gotta love that NFC East. Up here in the swamps of Jersey on Sunday, the Giants played as little fourth-quarter defense as possible but still pulled out a 34-31 overtime victory over a Falcons team that refused to play any defense all day. Meanwhile, back in Texas, the Cowboys waited until the last possible second to show up and beat the Redskins. Some kind of inspiring day for the teams at the top of a division that was supposed to rank among the NFL's best. And while the Giants' players and coaches said all the right things here (a win is a win, after all, and they hadn't had one in a month and a half), the most insightful thing anybody said came out of the mouth of defensive end Justin Tuck.

"We got the win and that's great," Tuck said. "But I don't like how we finished this game at all."

The Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants will play a very important game Sunday afternoon. Both teams are part of a 5-4 logjam in the NFC standings. The winner of this tilt is in a very good position to make the NFC playoffs, and the Giants are in desperate need of a win after four straight losses.

The Falcons will reportedly be missing a key player in the game Sunday, as running back Michael Turner will be inactive.

The Carolina Panthers have seemed to turn the proverbial corner twice this year; the first turn came after wins against Washington and Tampa Bay, only to see the Panthers exposed as Jake Delhomme threw three picks in an explicable loss to a horrendous Bills team.

But as the clock expired on the Cats' 28-19 win over the Falcons, things seemed much, much different. Not only had the Panthers beaten a division rival, but they had somehow climbed back into the playoff picture in the NFC, and that thought alone didn't seem as impossible as Delhomme going turnover free against Atlanta ... which he'd just done.

The dust has finally settled from the Sunday's sideline melee between Washington and Atlanta. The skirmish occurred shortly after a late hit by LaRon Landry sent Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan flying and tempers flaring between the Atlanta sideline and a few Redskins players, including former-Falcon DeAngelo Hall.

The NFL office has decided that fines should be handed out to four individuals. Falcons head coach Mike Smith received the biggest fine of $15,000 and Director of Athletic Performance Jeff Fish was slapped with a $2,500 fine. Two Redskins players were also fined -- Albert Haynesworth at $7,500 and LaRon Landry at $5,000.

Zebra Report is FanHouse's analysis of actual NFL rules and how they are to be applied ... because most fans think they could do a better job than the NFL officials, yet definitely could not. Click here for an introduction as to how we do things.

This past week of NFL play was relatively quiet in terms of complaints about the officiating. Note I said "relatively," because there are always a bevy of complaints -- many warranted and many ridiculously unwarranted. We know that. Regardless, we're still here to sift through some of the more intriguing rules-type interpretations, so let's dive in.

ATLANTA -- When the NFL schedule came out at the beginning of the year, the Washington Redskins game at the Atlanta Falcons wasn't necessarily a matchup you expected to be volatile. But DeAngelo Hall sure did.

Hall, who spent the first four seasons of his career playing in Atlanta, did a lot of trash-talking this week. He claimed that Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff lied to him on multiple occasions regarding roster issues, and he dared the Falcons to make him a target this week -- since he knew they probably would anyway.

Was there any doubt that if a skirmish broke out between the two teams that Hall would be involved?

NEW ORLEANS -- That wasn't a chip on Michael Turner's shoulder Monday night at the Superdome. That was a stack of cinder blocks the Atlanta Falcons' running back hauled around as motivation in what would be his biggest rushing performance of the season.

This was long overdue -- and surprising, considering Turner waited to get it done against the New Orleans Saints' sixth-ranked run defense: 20 carries and a season-high 151 yards, including a 13-yard touchdown run on Atlanta's opening drive.

Turner tore through Saints tackles up the middle, and he broke loose in the flats like an angry man.

That's because he was.

---

---

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Saints are still perfect, despite an imperfect performance, and now need one more win to set the record for best start in franchise history.

Drew Brees had 308 yards passing, Pierre Thomas scored two touchdowns and Jabari Greer returned an interception for a score to help the Saints improve to 7-0 with a 35-27 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Monday night. Only the 1991 Saints began a season with as many wins and no Saints team has started 8-0.

"We did a lot of things well and yet we did a lot of things that made it close at the end,'' Saints coach Sean Payton said. "I'm excited to win though. I'm excited to win this game and get to 7-0. It was an important game against a division team and I'm proud of our players. They fought.''