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There won't be much in this game that the New Orleans Saints haven't seen from Atlanta, and vice versa. The teams know each other very well and are bound to play a close game. With both teams playing at a high level, it is becoming one of the most recognizable rivalries league-wide.


David Grunfeld/The Times-PicayuneAtlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan passed for 351 yards the last time he played the New Orleans Saints.This time around, the Saints are playing for a chance to clinch the NFC South championship for the second time in three seasons and the third time under Coach Sean Payton. A New Orleans victory would also keep intact that no team in NFC South history has won back-to-back division crowns.

Payton has had much success against the Falcons, going 9-2 against the Dirty Birds since becoming the Saints' coach in 2006, and New Orleans has taken five of the past six meetings. The Saints look to have an advantage because the game is being played on Monday night. The teams have played five times on "Monday Night Football," and the Saints are 4-1. This is the third consecutive season the teams are playing on "MNF."

FALCONS OFFENSE

Matt Ryan passed for 351 yards the last time they met, but historically Ryan hasn't been at his best against the Saints. In six career starts against New Orleans, Ryan is 2-4, and the Saints are one of the two teams Ryan has played more than once against whom he doesn't have a winning record (Philadelphia is the other).

Still, Ryan is having a career season and has more than receiver Roddy White to thank for it. In the offseason, the Falcons gave up a lot in the draft to get Julio Jones, and the rookie receiver is paying off. He has 42 catches for 755 yards and five touchdowns and is developing into a deep threat. And Tony Gonzalez, the ageless wonder at tight end, is second on the team in receptions (74), yards (755) and touchdown catches (seven).

White is again looking like one of the top receivers in the game. He has had three 100-yard receiving games in his past five after having just one such game in his first nine. In his past five games, White has 38 receptions for 537 yards and five touchdowns. He had 10 catches for 135 yards and two scores in last week's 41-14 win against Jacksonville. He's third in the league in catches (85), eighth in yards (1,100) and ninth in touchdowns (eight).

But running back Michael Turner is still the key figure in the Falcons' attack. In Atlanta's nine wins this season, Turner has averaged 90.3 yards per game and scored eight touchdowns. However, in the Falcons' five losses, he only has averaged 63.2 yards per game and scored one touchdown. Taking out a 10-carry, 100-yard performance in Week 1 against Chicago, Turner is only averaging 3.4 yards per carry in the losses. Turner did rush for 96 yards the last time he played the Saints.

FALCONS DEFENSE

John Abraham is coming off one of his best games after posting 3.5 sacks and two forced fumbles against the Jaguars. He was the NFC Defensive Player of the Week. Abraham needs just 1.5 sacks to have his seventh season of 10 sacks or more. He anchors a defense that is ninth in the league in yards allowed per game and fourth against the run. The Saints struggled in this aspect last game, gaining only 41 yards.

Sean Witherspoon, a player many Saints fans coveted in the 2010 draft, has 107 tackles and is tied with Lawrence Sidbury for second on the team, with four sacks. Curtis Lofton leads the team in tackles with 124, fifth in the league. Lofton finished with nine tackles against the Saints last time and has made 10 or more tackles six times.

Atlanta's secondary is primed to get a boost, as Brent Grimes and Kelvin Hayden are looking to return from injury. Grimes has missed three games because of a knee injury, and Hayden has been out since Nov. 20 with a toe injury. Grimes has one interception but leads the team with 12 pass deflections.

FALCONS SPECIAL TEAMS

Eric Weems was one of the best return men in the league last season but has been mediocre this season, as the Falcons rank 18th in punt-return and kick-return averages. Weems is averaging 23.3 yards per kick return and 9.9 yards per punt return and has yet to return one for a touchdown.

Kicker Matt Bryant has been a steady force this season. After making 90.3 percent of his field-goal attempts last season, Bryant is hitting 92 percent (23-of-25) this season. Bryant, who once kicked a 62-yarder with Tampa Bay, has a long this season of 50.

Matt Bosher has placed 26 punts inside the opponent's 20-yard line, sixth-most in the NFL. He's averaging 42.1 yards per punt and a 39.1 net averag,e and only three of his punts have been touchbacks. Opponents are only averaging 4.7 yards a return against Atlanta this season.

LAST TIME THEY MET

Nov. 13, 2011, Georgia Dome

John Kasay kicked a 26-yard field goal in overtime to give the Saints a 26-23 victory. New Orleans seemingly had things in control when Kasay kicked a 44-yarder to give the Saints a 23-13 lead with 7:13 remaining, but the Falcons stormed back. Ryan threw a career-high 52 passes for 351 yards and two touchdowns. Harry Douglas gave the Saints' defense fits and finished with eight receptions for 133 yards. Saints safety Roman Harper finished with a season-high 13 tackles, including a sack, two tackles for losses and one pass deflection and was credited with two quarterback hits.

Is this the Melta on the Delta?

Lines like this piss me off and our very own Pudge is famous for it. Why would you take out this performance other than for it to appear slanted???

Was it someone on here that said that the median value of a RB's total carries is a better representative of his effectiveness? I'm beginning to come around to that logic.

Of course that was your hero, Pudge....its got its place I guess, but Turner's run against the Eagles helped us win that game.... You take out that 60 yarder; in the deep fourth Quarter and we probably lose.....So like all stats some are better than others;

Turner had about 115 yards that game, with 21 carries, so he averaged about 5 yards a carry.... You take out his 60 yard run and
we lose and he only averages 2.5 yards a carry......

I do like that for basically seeing how our run is doing, but Turner usually has at least one big run a game, if that stays consistent
then those stats don't mean as much..... If he's always at 2.5 they mean a lot..... Certain players you can count on for a couple of big plays a game..... I believe some stats mean a lot more than other stats.... I like the team stats!! & Takaways!!

I got no real beef with Turner as of late. He's running harder over the past 2 months than he did over the first month, which was all I ever really complained about. The point of the "take out" arguments I think are to give a more accurate indicator of a person's entire body of work, at least what is typical. It's analogous to a student that predominantly gets Cs on most of his tests, papers, and assignments, but then every now and then gets an A sprinkled in there. And just enough As to bump his grade average to a B-. Is that student really a B student, or is he just a C student that has a nice moment every now and then. But if 75% of the time you get Cs, and 25% of the time you get As, what should be the realistic expectation for what you are going to score on your next test/assignment?

I agree Cyril about the run vs. Philly. That was probably his biggest run of the season. The rest of the season he's ranged from mediocre to solid, with probably a few more of the latter performances than the former.

He hasn't had a run of over 16 yards in 4 straight games. If you look at any statistical measure besides yards, Turner is below average in all of them. He's on pace to finish this year with 1290 yards, and he may wind up with the most mediocre looking 1300-yard season we've seen since Willie Parker and Jamal Lewis both did it in 2007. Guess what happened the following year? Parker had an injury filled 800-yard season and then was out of the league a year later. Lewis plodded his way to another 1000 yard season and was retired eating PB&Js by 2010. Both saw their YPC's drop-off from over 4.1+ in 2007 to under 3.8 in 2008. Guess what Turner's YPC is currently? 4.1.

If the Falcons go into 2012 expecting any different, then it will be the final nail in the coffin that Thomas Dimitroff is no better a talent evaluator than the much despised Rich McKay.

I don't want Turner on the team next year.....I'd hope we could get a veteran that we can place where we need....

Here we go. Ummm, so, I may be wrong, but the main reason there are running back in the NFL is to run the ball and gain yards. I'm obviously not as smart as you though.

Apparently not (Thanks for the lay up).

Jon Kitna had a 4000-yard passing season not that long ago in Detroit. Did that make him one of the best QBs in the league? No.

Yes, yards are important. And there's a certain threshhold of yards a a RB can achieve where it's hard to argue that a particular RB stinks. 1200-1300 is around that point, so once more I can safely say that Turner is by no means a bum. But Turner's typical statline if you really look is about 20 carries, 75 yards each week. That works out to be 1200 total yards if you did that every week. But if in 4 games you were able to break a 35-yard gain on 1 of those runs, you'd all of a sudden push your YPC from a "mediocre" 3.8 to an "awesome" 5.5, and it would be the difference between an 1200-yard season and a 1340-yard season.

And this is the point that myself and a few others that are "hating" on Turner are trying to suggest. Is that if you only look at the surface, you'd see Turner being among the Top 5 RBs in yards and think he's still "got it." The needle has been pointing down on Turner for a while now, and you'd have to be a lunatic to think that is going to change. Now to someone from Montana who has seen only a few Falcon games on primetime this year, probably isn't aware of this. And simply will look at Turner's yardage total and his production in fantasy football, and think, "Hey, Turner's doing a fine job."

But anybody that has been watching him every week this year, and every week for the last 4 years should know the truth in that depends on what your definition of "fine" is. Fine in the sense that he's adding some value to the team and their running game? Absolutely. Fine in the sense that he is adding significant value to the Falcons running game? Then the answer is no. And outside that Philly game as Cyril has already pointed out, you're going to be hard-pressed to find another game where Turner was essential to our success, at least in the sense that your average RB (i.e. Jason Snelling) couldn't have done with reasonable expectation.

And it's easy to pass the buck and say that the blocking simply isn't there which is why Turner has all of those 1 and 2 yard runs on 1st down. Frankly, it's oddly fascinating to me how often Turner follows up one of those bad runs on 1st down with a good run on 2nd down. But nonetheless, the point is that passing that buck is completely ignoring another key issue, which is Turner has been trending downwards for 4 years at a steady rate, and it's by no means a slight drop-off each year. It's a big hop downwards.

And thus if TD & Smitty & Co. aren't aware of this, then they have no keener an insight to this team than James Wilkins of Missoula, Montana. And that my friends is a very, very, very, very bad thing.

I do think the median average has some merit...... Yes Turner's big run against Philly won us the game, but during our first game
against the Bears he also had one big run, that must not have meant much because we lost.....and about 3 other games like that!!

I wouldn't want only the one set of stats......

Turner should be let go this year...... Maybe someone would give us a #3 for him but I doubt it......All that yardage is important, but
he's been Matt's babysitter for 4 years.... I'm ready for some faster backs out of the backfield that can catch the ball!! We paid
Turner great and he's been a great Falcon.... A real win-win- now its time to cut him too soon rather than too late..... Yea I'd say the
guy can still get 1300 or a least 1,100 yards with a better line; but I'm ready for multiple use backs that can catch a 5 yard pass out of the backfield and then run it 60 yards....and still go up the middle......

If we get deep into the playoffs at all; maybe not using Rodgers so much will start to make sense if they up his production a good bit......I doubt he's played enough to hit a wall, but he has caught more catches than I expected!!

The yards aren't inconsequential, but a 9-yard gain on 3rd & 20 at your own 23 is not as good as a 3-yard gain on 2nd & 2 at your opponents 18. All yards aren't created equal. The interesting thing to me is that Frank Gore has had a similar type of season to Turner, in that he's gotten a lot of yards, but doesn't have a high efficiency or success rate. But I think in the case of Gore, it's more about controlling the clock and playing good defense, which hurts his success/efficiency. For instance, Alex Smith is only averaging 27.7 pass attempts per game, while Matt Ryan is averaging 36.1 per game. League average is around 33.9 attempts per game, so I think the trade-off to be a team that throws the ball 5-6 times less than your typical NFL team is probably 5-6 "throwaway" runs for Gore that hurt his efficiency. That case probably could have been made for Turner in '08 as well. Then Ryan averaged 27.1 pass attempts per game, when the league average was 32.3. But I think that case can no longer be made.

I just think that Breakaway Stat at Pro Football Focus perfectly illustrates the type of season Turner is having. He has the 4th highest percentage of his total rushing yards gained on 15+ yard carries. And while he's tied for the league lead with 15+ yard runs with LeSean McCoy with 19, which is a good thing, I think it's masking a lot of poor runs. If you were to take away all of the yardage from those 15+ yard runs, here is how Turner stacks up against McCoy, Gore, Beanie Wells, Shonn Greene, and LeGarrette Blount. I picked the latter three because they are similarly power backs:

Turner - 254 carries, 655 yards, 2.58 avg
Gore - 238 carries, 724 yards, 3.04 avg
McCoy - 253 carries, 799 yards, 3.16 avg
Blount - 168 carries, 561 yards, 3.34 avg
Wells - 238 carries, 808 yards, 3.39 avg
Greene - 223 carries, 798 yards, 3.58 avg

Note, in 2008 that number was 3.12 for Turner, 3.10 in 2009, and 2.97 in 2010. Facts are is that Turner is at or near the bottom of the league in this category.

I just think it's fairly obvious that the Falcons should move on next year. It'll be interesting to see what the team does this off-season. Turner has given us 3 excellent seasons, and a 4th solid year. That's nothing to sneeze at, but there's always a point in time where you have to move on from all players. Everybody gets old.