A Head-to-Head History: The Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints

 The Falcons and Saints joined the NFL a year apart during the transitional, pre-merger phase of the league. Prior to Atlanta joining in 1966 and New Orleans in 1967, the southernmost team on the coast had been in Washington DC. They became natural rivals, as bus loads of fans venture on seven-hour road trip between the cities when they play one another. A further non-geographic bond is the fact that the franchises share the same all-time leading scorer - Morten Andersen (New Orleans 1982 - 1994, 1,318 points; Atlanta 1995 - 2000, 2006 - 2007; 806 points.)

Although they currently reside in the NFC South Division, the Dixie Rivalry began in the post-merger NFL's NFC West in 1970. They usually battled with one another to stay out of the division's basement, as the Rams and 49'ers more often that not finished at the top. Prior to 1970 the Falcons resided in the NFL Coastal Division while the Saints rotated between the Capital and Century Divisions.

Like most expansion teams, the Falcons and Saints struggled on the field with roster mostly stocked with young players and veteran cast-offs, as there were no quick fixes available via free agency. The first meeting between the teams took place in Week 11 of the 1967 season, where the 1-8-1 Falcons visited the 1-9 Saints in Tulane Stadium. Billy Kilmer lead New Orleans on a touchdown drive in the fourth quarter for a 24-20 win. Two minute drives and comeback victories would become a recurring theme over the years.

That was not the case in 1973 though. In the midst of a nine-game win streak against their Southern rivals, the Falcons set a team record for points in a remarkable one-sided rout. After the end of a 0-0 first quarter, Atlanta went on a scoring rampage that saw them rack up 62 points. The Falcon offense was unstoppable, moving the chains with 32 first downs on the strength of 218 rushing yards, while the Saints offense was error prone, turning the ball over eight times, including five interceptions by Archie Manning.

The balance of the 70's saw the rivalry achieve competitive balance, with many of the signature moments occurring in New Orleans Super Dome. In 1978 Atlanta became the first of the two teams to qualify for the post season, and a signature win over the Saints in November helped them get there. The 5-5 Saints carried a 17-6 late into the fourth quarter against the 6-4 Falcons. Atlanta quarterback Steve Bartkowski lead the Falcons on a touchdown drive that closed the gap to 17-13 with 0:57 on the clock. After recovering the attempted on-sides kick, New Orleans attempted to run out the clock. Coach Dick Nolan elected to run a play on fourth-and-two, but halfback Chuck Muncie was stopped short of the line to gain and the Atlanta offense came back onto the field with 19 seconds left. Bartkowski lined up under center with three receivers split out wide to the right of the formation. The Saints were deployed in a prevent package featuring seven defensive backs. Bartkowski heaved a desperation pass toward the end zone, where his receivers attempted to get under the pass in heavy traffic. At least a dozen hands from both teams reached up to either grab or bat the ball down, but Falcon receiver Alfred Jenkins came away with possession off a tip, avoided several defenders and crossed the goal line for the decisive and dramatic 57-yard score. The "Big Ben" play lead highlight programs across the country and the momentum seizing win not only propelled Atlanta on a playoff run, they produced a win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round before losing to the eventual NFC Champion Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional playoffs.

The schedule makers didn't do the New Orleans faithful any favors by schedule a visit from Atlanta on opening day the following season. The back-and-forth shootout saw the teams combine for over 1,000 yards of offense, with stars from both teams rack up impressive offensive numbers: Muncie and Atlanta rookie William Andrews each eclipsed 160 rushing yards, Jenkins had seven catches and a touchdown for the Falcons, while Wes Chandler produced 205 yards on just six catches, including a 40-yard score on an option pass from Muncie. Late in the game, then into overtime, New Orleans rookie kicker/punter Russel Erxleben experienced the highs and lows of his dual profession. Manning lead the Saints on a late drive that was capped with Erxleben's 38-yard field goal knotting the score at 34-34 with 44 seconds remaining. Midway through the extra period, Erxleben had the ball snapped over his head in the punt formation from the New Orleans 32 yard line. He scooped it up near his own goal line, then hurried a two-handed pass under pressure into the hands of Falcon James Mayberry who scored from six yards out for the stunning 40-34 win. Atlanta finished the 1979 season a disappointing 6-10, while the Saints recovered somewhat, finishing a then franchise best 8-8.

1991 saw a reversal of fortunes in the NFC West. the Saints finished in first place at 11-5 and the Falcons qualified as a Wild Card at 10-6, marking the first time either the 49'ers or Rams were left out of the post season since 1982. Three second half lead changes were capped by Michael Haynes 61-yard touchdown pass from Chris Miller with 2:41 remaining. New Orleans took possession on their own 17, and advanced to Atlanta's 35 with 1:10 to play. Bobby Hebert's pass was intercepted by Tim McKyer, who lateraled the ball to Deion Sanders, who ran around before lateraling to Joe Fishback who finished the play with an apparent touchdown. Following instant replay, it was determined Sander's exchange with Fishback was a forward pass, disqualifying the touchdown but the Falcons retained possession and ran the clock out. The loss was especially tough for New Orleans to take. Having made the post season three of the previous four seasons, each had ended with a one-game exit without a victory. The Falcons lost the following week to the eventual Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins.

Morten Andersen made one of his final game winning kicks for the Saints against his future team in 1994. The offensive game was remarkable in the fact that New Orleans was able to pull off the victory despite turning the ball over five times. the Falcons were unable to capitalize, despite churning out almost 400 yards of offense, they settled for six Norm Johnson field goals. The kicking duel was settled in the final two minutes of the game. Johnson booted a 30-yard field goal to put Atlanta ahead 32-30 with 1:44 remaining, but Andersen's fifth field goal of the day came from 39-yards out and just 0:08 left on the clock decided the outcome, 33-32.

New Orleans probably regretted letting Andersen leave via free agency following the 1994 season, as he signed with the Atlanta and was directly responsible for a Falcon sweep of the Saints in 1995. During his return to the Super Dome in September, Andersen booted four field goals, including a 21-yarder in overtime for the 24-21 Falcon win. In the December meeting at Georgia Dome, Andersen again was the deciding factor for the Falcons offense, but this time from long range. He set an NFL record with three successful attempts from 50 yards out - 51 and 55 twice - as Atlanta won 19-14.

The most poignant meeting, though albeit not the greatest game, was the Saints return to the Super Dome on September 25, 2006. After spending the 2005 season playing their "home" games at the Alamodome in San Antonio, TX and Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Saints returned home with a new head coach and quarterback and a 2-0 record. Atlanta was also 2-0, but were unable to match the intensity of the Saints or their fans in the raucous dome. After surrendering a touchdown on a blocked punt, the Falcons managed an Andersen field goal and nothing more. The inspired New Orleans defense dominated, yielding just 10 first downs to Atlanta while holding Michael Vick to 12-31 passing for just 137 yards. Drew Brees' debut in New Orleans was modest statistically, but he was efficient and the Saints went on to a 23-3 win, a 10-6 record and NFC South Title and a trip tot eh NFC Championship game, where they ultimately lost to the Chicago Bears. changes would soon be in store for the Falcons as well, but the groundwork had been prepared for the Saints and Falcons to finally emerge as contenders at the same time.

The meeting at the Super Dome in Week 3 was a key meeting between the two rivals. The 1-1 Saints were defending Super Bowl Champions while the Falcons were coming off the first back-to-back winning seasons in franchise history. The game featured four lead changes as quarterbacks Brees and Matt Ryan moved their respective offenses up and down the field. Lance Moore's 16-yard touchdown reception at the end of the third quarter gave the Saints a 21-17 lead. Ryan responded by leading Atlanta on a 10-play drive that was capped by a 22-yard touchdown pass to Roddy White to regain the lead 24-21. Following an exchange of punts, Brees guided New Orleans to a tying field goal with nine seconds remaining, sending the game into overtime. The Falcons received the kickoff and punted after three plays. Four Brees completions moved New Orleans from their own 32 to the Atlanta 11. Seemingly in safe position, the Saints elected for a 29-yard field goal attempt on first down, but Garret Hartley pulled the ball wide left despite kicking from the right hash mark. Ryan and the Falcons capitalized, methodically advancing the ball from their own 20 to the Saints 23 in 12 plays. Matt Bryant's 46-yard attempt was good for the 27-24 win. Atlanta finished atop the NFC South with a 13-3 record with New Orleans second at 11-5, however both teams lost their first post season contests.

Tonight the Falcons off look to get revenge on the Saints who handed them their first lost three weeks ago, while the Saints try to stay in the playoff hunt after a 0-4 start.

Record Setting Night

Record Setting Night
by Rob Holecko

Last night, Saints QB Drew Brees broke Dan Marino's 1984 single-season passing mark of 5,084 yards on his final throw of the night, a touchdown that gave him 5,087 yards for the season, with one more game still to play.  The Saints beat the Falcons and clinched the NFC South title.

Throughout the night, during the telecast they referred to the record, giving a countdown of how many yards Brees needed.  They flashed back to 1984 and the Monday Night game at the end of the year against the Cowboys when Marino set the record.  They talked about the evolution of the record, from Sammy Baugh and John Unitas, and then in 1967, in the AFL, Joe Namath became the first to pass for 4,000 yards in a season.  Dan Fouts broke that record three consecutive years, in 1979, 1980 and 1981, and then Marino in 1984 passed for 5,084, a record that has stood since then.

In 2008, Brees got close to breaking the record a first time, throwing an incomplete pass on the final play of the season against the Carolina Panthers and winding up at 5,069 yards.

But this time he closed the deal, and he'll get to add to it next week, possibly they won't rest their starters in the season finale as the Saints still have a chance at a first-round bye, if they can win although they'll need the 49ers to lose to the Rams, possibly a tall order.

It was an exciting night in the Louisiana Superdome Allstate Car Carriers Big Old Round Building Mercedes Benz Superdome, possibly the biggest since the 2009 Super Bowl run, a with it being a Monday Night against the Falcons, it was reminiscent of the 2006 Week 3 game against the MNF Falcons when the Saints re-opened the dome after losing the 2005 season to Hurricane Katrina.

The Saints that year, after a dismal 2005 season went all the way to the NFC Championship game where they lost to the Bears, and three years later won Super Bowl XLIV.

Tom Brady has 4,897 yards going into his finale against Buffalo, so he also has an outside chance of passing 5,000 yards and Marino's mark.

Next week Brees also has a chance of passing Peyton Manning's record of 450 completions in a season, he finished last night with 440.

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"On This Day..."

Last week all the talk (in and around New York anyway) was the Giants-Jets game, but today we will look back to another day where the focus of the NFL was all on the New York teams.  On December 27, 1981, the two NFL Wild Card games were played as the Bills and the Jets faced off at Shea stadium in the early AFC game, and the Giants and Eagles faced off in the NFC game in Philadelphia.

Here's a quick summary of this game from Wikipedia:

Bills defensive back Bill Simpson's interception at the Buffalo 1-yard line with 2 seconds left in the game preserved a 31-27 victory and gave Buffalo their first playoff win since 1965.

The Bills jumped to a 24-0 lead by the second quarter. First New York's Bruce Harper fumbled the opening kickoff while being tackled by Ervin Parker, and Charles Romes returned the ball 26-yards to the end zone. Then after a punt, quarterback Joe Ferguson completed a 50-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Frank Lewis, while interceptions by Simpson and linebacker Phil Villapiano led to a 29-yard field goal by Nick Mike-Mayer and a 26-yard scoring reception by Lewis. However, Jets quarterback Richard Todd threw a 30-yard touchdown to tight end Mickey Shuler, and kicker Pat Leahy added two field goals to cut Buffalo's lead, 24-13.
With about 10 minutes left in the game, running back Joe Cribbs ran for a 45-yard touchdown, increasing the Bills lead to 31-13. But Todd then led the Jets 80 yards in 8 plays and completed a 30-yard touchdown to Bobby Jones. Then after forcing a punt, New York drove for another score, aided by a pass interference call against Bills defensive back Mario Clark that nullified an interception. Kevin Long finished the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to cut the score to 31-27. The Jets got the ball back with 2:36 remaining and then drove 69 yards to the Buffalo 11-yard line, aided by a holding penalty that wiped out an interception by defensive back Steve Freeman. However, Simpson's interception at the 1-yard line halted New York's comeback with 2 seconds left.

Simpson recorded 2 interceptions, while Lewis caught 7 passes for a franchise postseason record 158 yards and 2 touchdowns. Shuler caught 6 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown. Todd threw for 377 yards, while Ferguson threw for 268. Both quarterbacks threw 2 touchdowns and were intercepted four times.

Larry Schmit reports to us in the forum that in this game the Bills' Joe Cribbs wore a gray facemask, while the other Bills wore the correct white facemasks. (see pictures)  Thanks, Larry.

In the other game, the Giants and Eagles faced off.  Here's the Wikipedia run down of that game:

The Giants jumped to a 20-0 lead in the first quarter, but had to withstand an Eagles comeback at the end to hold on to a 27-21 win. In the first quarter, Eagles kick/punt returner Wally Henry fumbled a punt and Beasley Reece recovered the ball at the Philadelphia 26-yard line. A few plays later, quarterback Scott Brunner then threw a 9-yard touchdown to running back Leon Bright (the extra point attempt failed). Later in the first period, Brunner threw a 10-yard touchdown to wide receiver John Mistler, Henry then fumbled the ensuing kickoff, and Mark Haynes recovered the ball in the end zone to give New York a 20-0 lead.

In the second quarter, Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski completed a 15-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Harold Carmichael, but it was countered by Brunner's 22-yard touchdown to wide receiver Tom Mullady to give the Giants a 27-7 halftime lead. However, New York was shut out in the second half, while the Eagles opened the third period by marching 82 yards to score on running back Wilbert Montgomery's 6-yard rushing touchdown. Montgomery added another touchdown with 2:51 left in the game, but the Giants were able to run out the rest of the clock to preserve the victory. It marked the Giants first post season victory since 1956.

The Bills and the Giants both scored their first post-season victories in decades that day, and while they would both go on to lose to the eventual Super Bowl participants, the 49ers and the Bengals, the following week, for one day the New York teams were the center of the football world.

Ch- Ch- Changes

With all of the traffic we have received in the last few days, we had numerous updates and changes submitted by many visitors to the site, however, due to some technical difficulties, we have been unable to update them in the last day or two, so today we will devote the entire column to these changes. I've gotten some comments and e-mails that you all seemed to like the 'Mr. Wizard' theme video embed with Bill's column Monday, so I'm going to make embedding a youtube video a regular feature here at the website.  I'm not a big David Bowie fan, but I do have this song running through my head right now, and since we have so many "ch-ch-changes" to update, it seems apropos.

With all of these changes today, we'll dispense with showing both 'before' and 'after' images, however we are working on a way of displaying the progression of previous database images which will give credit to the submitter for the change.      We'll start off with the 1948 New York Giants, thanks to bigbluelarry, who alerted us to some Charles Connerly pictures that showed a different helmet pattern than what we had.      Another change that we made came to us from Dante X, who informed us that the 1993 New England Patriots -- the first year of the blue uniforms, when they wore numbers like this -- actually had gray facemasks.  I wonder if Dante is this guy, who was a coach on that team?  Probably not.      After much debate we have decided to change the brown of the supposedly brown horse on the controversial early-season 1962 Broncos helmet.  This is not to say we endorse or don't endorse any particular theories about the said color of the horse, however, at this time, we have agreed it is probably more purplish-brown than just straight brown. Also a slight change in the angle of orientation of the horse from the previous image.  I'm sure this debate will continue.      Speaking of the Broncos, we have a slew of changes thanks to anyonebutdetroit.  After looking at his submissions, the 1989-93 Broncos now have three stripes instead of five stripes on the sleeves, the nameplate has been changed for the 1994 to 96 uniforms, and we have added the monochrome blue look the Broncos wore in the 1997 preseason.  An additional change will be coming tomorrow as we have confirmed a mistake we had with their 1994 road throwback uniforms.      We have changed the stripe pattern on the Philadelphia Eagles 1974 to 1984 uniform pants, it's wasn't much of a difference, but a small detail change none-the-less.  The image to the right is the new stripe pattern, there is now more silver showing between the green stripes and the white stripe in the middle.      The Miami Dolphins franchise has had a few changes, for the 1973 image we have eliminated some of the combinations of the helmet and sock variations.  Compare this with the updated image to the right, and for the 1969 season, we also have some changes with the sock patterns.  As many of you know, the Dolphins in their early years have been very inconsistent with the uniforms.  They had two different helmets, one with the dolphin all the way across the sun, and another with the head of the dolphin inside the sun.  At times players have even worn different versions in the same game! All these Dolphins changes come with thanks to dirwulf.      Finally, a picture (right) surfacing from a 1969 preseason game between the Saints and the Lions has yielded a few changes.  This picture was seen at Chris Creamer's SportsLogos.net forum, and in it we can see that the Lions wore stripe-less jerseys, and the Saints debuted their 1970 nameplate-less jerseys.  Previously, we did not have the Saints' combo of wearing the white jerseys either with the black numbers in 1969, or with the preseason black helmet.  Isn't that Saints' black helmet cool?

1948 New York Giants 1993 New England Patriots 1962 Denver Broncos 1992 Denver Broncos 1997 Denver Broncos 1974-84 Philadelphia Eagles 1973 Miami Dolphins 1969 Miami Dolphins 1969 New Orleans Saints 1969 Detroit Lions

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     Well, there you have it. Thanks to all those who have helped make this database that much better by offering corrections.  Keep them coming!  Tommorow we'll bring you that Broncos throwback change we mentioned, plus updates to the New York Giants and to a stripe pattern of the Minnesota Vikings for a year in the mid-1960's. Join our forum and you too can be part of the debate.