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Let’s take a look at some of the statistical superlatives from Atlanta’s 24-14 victory against Minnesota on Sunday.

• The Falcons now are 8-2 against NFC North opponents since coach Mike Smith arrived in 2008.

• Cornerback Christopher Owens stopped Percy Harvin at the Atlanta 3-yard line on a fourth-quarter kickoff return. Owens followed that by sacking Christian Ponder on the next play.

• Second-year linebacker Sean Weatherspoon continues to emerge as one of the defense’s brightest spots. He had a team-high 10 tackles, one sack, three tackles for a loss and one quarterback hit.

• Speaking of emerging players, receiver Harry Douglas had his first touchdown catch of the season. In the past three games, Douglas has 14 catches for 229 yards.

• Roddy White moved into sole possession of third place in team history in career touchdown catches. White has 41 touchdown receptions. He’s behind only Terance Mathis (57) and Andre Rison. White finished with 120 yards on a season-high 10 catches. He now has had over 100 receiving yards in each of the past two games.

• Quarterback Matt Ryan, who passed for three touchdowns, now has thrown at least one touchdown pass in 10 straight games. He has thrown for more than one touchdown in three of the past four games.

• Ryan’s 128.2 NFL passer rating was a season best. It also was the fourth-highest rating of Ryan’s career. The Falcons are 20-0 when Ryan has a rating over 100.

• Tight end Tony Gonzalez had a season-high nine catches for 69 yards. He now has 13,093 yards, which moved him past Steve Largent (13,089) and into 12^th place on the league’s all-time list for receiving yards.

• Defensive end Lawrence Sidbury had perhaps the best day of his career. Sidbury recorded two sacks. That gives him four for the season and he’s tied for the team lead.

• Minnesota rushed for just 64 yards on 24 carries. The Falcons now are allowing 83.5 rushing yards per game, which would qualify for the second-best average in franchise history. The Falcons have not allowed a 100-yard rusher in 14 consecutive games, dating back to last season.

Atlanta cornerback Christopher Owens never has been a big name. He’s spent most of his career as a backup. But Owens made the play of the day for the Falcons on Sunday and it could end up being the biggest play of Atlanta’s season.

The Falcons had built a 17-0 lead, but they allowed the Vikings to get back into the game late. Atlanta led by 10 with just under seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter when Percy Harvin took a kickoff in his own end zone and returned it 104 yards, but Owens was able to chase Harvin down at the 3-yard line. Atlanta’s defense then came up with a goal-line stand and the Falcons won 24-14.

Had Harvin scored and the Falcons had lost, their playoff hopes would have taken a big hit. Instead, they're 7-4 and kept with the New Orleans Saints, who are 7-3 and host the New York Giants on Monday night.

“That was the most pivotal play in the ballgame in my opinion,’’ Atlanta coach Mike Smith said. “For (Owens) and the effort that he put forth to run Percy Harvin down, and get him down on the 3-yard line, it allowed us to put our defense out there and have an opportunity to live to play another play. We were able to have a goal-line stand. There were a number of guys that made some significant plays in that goal-line stand, but I believe it was (linebacker) Sean Weatherspoon from my vantage point that knifed in on the fourth down and was the first one to make the hit. You can’t say enough about our effort. If you have that type of effort, you are going to greatly enhance your chances of winning. You can overcome some of your shortcomings and some of the mistakes you make by hustling. That was a great play by Chris Owens.”

Thoughts on the Atlanta Falcons’ 24-14 victory against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday at the Georgia Dome.

What it means: The Falcons continue to be a hard team to figure out. They came out and started fast. They looked like they were going to have a very easy time with the Vikings. But Atlanta let Minnesota back in the game in the third quarter and that made things more interesting than they should have been. That’s kind of been the story of Atlanta’s entire season. The Falcons have been maddeningly inconsistent and nothing has come easy for them. But the bottom line is the Falcons are 7-4. They’ve pulled even with the Saints, who play Monday night, and they’re very much a factor in the NFC South race.

Roddy’s on a roll: After starting the season very slowly, receiver Roddy White has come on strong in the past two games. White had his second straight 100-yard receiving game and caught a touchdown pass. Fellow receiver Julio Jones also returned from a hamstring injury. Jones didn’t show up big on the stat sheet, but his presence helped White, Harry Douglas and Tony Gonzalez have big games. That’s a big part of the reason the Falcons traded up in the draft to get Jones.

What I didn’t like: I don’t think it was by design, but middle linebacker Curtis Lofton wound up in deep coverage on Percy Harvin on a fourth-down play in the fourth quarter. Lofton is a solid linebacker, but he shouldn’t ever be put in a situation where he has to cover a speed receiver downfield.

Defense rising: I’ve said several times throughout the season that the NFC South race will come down to defense. I realize the Vikings were playing without Adrian Peterson and were starting rookie quarterback Christian Ponder. But the Atlanta defense shut the Vikings down. Minnesota had only two first downs in the first half. It took some time to get it together, but Atlanta’s defense has played well in recent weeks and seems to be improving. If that continues, it could help the Falcons tremendously down the stretch.

What’s next: The Falcons travel to Houston to play the Texans next Sunday at Reliant Stadium.

On the surface, it looks like there’s a great argument brewing out there about who should be the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year.

The names Cam Newton, Andy Dalton and DeMarco Murray are getting tossed around. It makes for great conversation, but let’s face reality.

Newton won the award a long time ago. This race was over two weeks into the season. Despite some really nice deeds by Dalton and Murray, nothing really has changed and it’s not going to.

As the first overall pick in the draft, Newton came with all sorts of flash and glitter. He was a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback on a national championship team at Auburn and that made him a strong favorite to win Rookie of the Year before the season ever started.

Newton settled it in two weeks. He threw for more than 400 yards in each of his first two games. No rookie quarterback had ever done that, and that’s the kind of thing that’s going to stick in the mind of voters.

Speaking of voters, let’s be very clear. We’re talking about the Associated Press NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award. There are other rookie honors out there and they matter. Just not as much as the one by the Associated Press.

If you don’t believe me, consider this: If a player gets an incentive clause in his contract for winning a Rookie of the Year award, it almost always is stipulated that he only gets paid if it’s the one from the Associated Press.

The way it works is the voters are writers from every NFL city. Majority rules and, unless Newton suffers a season-ending injury very soon, he’s going to win.

Yeah, I can hear the arguments coming from Dallas and Cincinnati and I respect them. But those folks can save themselves some pain later by realizing now that Murray and Dalton aren’t going to win the award.

I know everything is bigger in Texas and that’s why Dallas fans are going crazy about Murray. He has been incredible since Felix Jones went down with an injury in mid-October. Murray has 674 rushing yards this season with 601 of them coming in the past four games.

And I understand that the Cowboys are “America’s Team,’’ and Dallas is a much bigger media market than Charlotte or Cincinnati. But that actually could end up working against Murray. For a long time, there have been grumbles that it’s harder for Cowboys to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame because voters feel saturated by anything to do with Dallas.

A lot of those voters are the same ones who select the Rookie of the Year. The Cowboys haven’t had one of those since Emmitt Smith in 1990.

Murray is good, but he’s not Emmitt Smith. You could make the case that we saw Murray last year. Tampa Bay’s LeGarrette Blount rushed for 1,000 yards in basically half a season (and for his next trick he’s trying to learn how to pass block) and he didn’t even come close to winning the award.

Sam Bradford did.

That’s because Bradford is a quarterback. Let’s face it, quarterbacks generally are going to win popularity contests simply because they’re quarterbacks. Four of the past seven winners have been quarterbacks. Heck, even Vince Young won it in 2006.

Once in awhile, as happened in 2007, an Adrian Peterson comes along. And in the years when no rookie quarterback does much, the award goes to a Percy Harvin or a Cadillac Williams. This isn’t one of those years.

That brings it down to Dalton and Newton.

Dalton is doing what Bradford did last year and what Matt Ryan did in 2008. He’s come in, played very well and his team is winning. The Bengals are 6-3 and Dalton has thrown for 1,866 yards and 14 touchdowns. He’s smart, doesn’t make big mistakes and there’s no doubt Dalton is a big reason Cincinnati is one of the league’s most surprising teams.

But he’s not the only reason. Cincinnati’s defense has been shockingly good. Dalton really hasn’t been shocking. He has only had one 300-yard game, and only one game in which he’s thrown more than two touchdown passes.

Is anybody really ready to call Dalton a franchise quarterback? Yeah, I know it might be a little tempting because it’s been tough to even call the Bengals a franchise for most of the time they’ve been in the league. But Dalton is not Newton. He’s not even close.

By about halftime of the opener, the world knew Newton was a franchise quarterback. He threw for 422 yards that day in Arizona. Then, he came back the next week and threw for 432 against Green Bay, and, suddenly, the Panthers had hope for the first time in a long time. They've still got it.

Yeah, both those games were losses, and, despite Newton’s play, the Panthers have continued to do a lot of losing. They’re 2-7 and we are talking about a game that’s supposed to be the ultimate team sport.

But Rookie of the Year isn’t a team award, which is significant because if you factored in the play of Carolina’s defense, Newton would be wearing heavy anchors on both his legs.

Rookie of the Year is an individual honor, and even if it wasn’t, Newton still would have the edge. He’s thrown for about 800 yards more than Dalton. Oh, and since we mentioned Newton’s legs, let’s take a look at rushing stats. Newton has rushed for 374 yards and seven touchdowns.

Dalton has run for 26 yards. If you really want to pad his stats, you could say he’s run for 78 feet, which is nice. But we’ve seen Dalton before. He compares nicely to guys like Ryan, Bradford, Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez as rookies.

We’ve never seen anything like Newton before. You could say he runs like Tim Tebow or Michael Vick. Or you could say he throws like Dan Marino or Peyton Manning. You’ve never been able to say both things about any single quarterback. Until now.

Yeah, Newton’s not perfect. He has thrown 10 interceptions (but Dalton has thrown nine on 40 less attempts). It also would be nice to see Newton get some wins. But those will come next season when the Panthers have had time to rebuild a defense that got shredded by injuries.

This is about this year. There’s no question Newton and Dalton have turned heads. But Newton is the only rookie who has had heads spinning.

NEW ORLEANS -- If you weren’t in the Superdome on Sunday night, and a lot of New Orleans Saints fans are going to claim that honor for years, let’s make you feel as if you were.

Let’s turn it over to Jerry Romig, the official public address announcer in the Louisiana Superdome. If you’ve been to a Saints game, you’ve heard the voice because Romig has been here for a long time. Here’s the microphone, Jerry:

“Ain’t this beautiful?” Romig said over the speakers a couple of minutes after the Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in overtime in the NFC Championship Game. “The Saints are going to the Super Bowl.’’

There, you heard the official word -- and isn’t it kind of ironic that Romig used the word "ain’t"? Yes, the team that once was called the Aints and had fans wearing bags over their heads, is going to the Super Bowl. They’ll play the Indianapolis Colts -- and New Orleans native Peyton Manning -- in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami on Feb. 7.

It’s over now, but what a strange path the Saints took to get there -- both Sunday night and throughout their history.

“Anybody want a rejuvenated ulcer?’’ an elevator operator in the Superdome press box asked a few minutes after the game.

“I’m just trying to congest all this,’’ a fan said as she walked down a Superdome tunnel.

Congest it, ingest it, digest it or whatever, but enjoy it. This was about more than one of the best postseason games in NFL history. This was about the city of New Orleans, really the whole Gulf region. From Bogalusa to Lake Charles, La., from Biloxi, Miss., to Mobile, Ala., and even into parts of extreme northwest Florida, they’re celebrating more than the first Super Bowl trip in franchise history.

They’re celebrating a way of life -- a way of life that’s helped this region come back from one of the worst natural disasters in history.

“Brett Favre is a great story,’’ New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita said. “But the New Orleans Saints are a better story.’’

Fujita’s right. What happened Sunday night was about history and legacies, but not about Favre. Sure, the stage was set for another legendary Favre moment. You know, something like the old gunslinger comes home (he grew up just up the road in Kiln, Miss.), takes an incredible beating, spends most of the game limping around and, in the end, makes a play to take his team to the Super Bowl.

Another chapter in the storybook. And all of it except the very last part came true. On a night when Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin were bouncing balls off the Superdome floor, Favre almost overcame them.

But you want to talk about overcoming things? Let’s go back to the Saints and the community around them.

“This is for everybody in this city," coach Sean Payton said as he raised the George S. Halas Trophy over his head. “This stadium used to have holes in it and be wet. It’s not wet anymore."

No, it’s not. Looking out at the Superdome floor afterward, all you could see was confetti. Lots and lots of it. You also could see Payton dressed in a suit, throwing passes to his son and a few of his friends.

It’s playtime for the Paytons and party time for Saints fans everywhere. The days of rooting for lovable losers are over. The misery is over. At least for one night, what happened a little over four years ago is a distant memory, kind of like Archie Manning and Tom Dempsey.

What happened was the world changed for New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina hit. The city and the region were devastated.

“The city is on its way to recovery and in a lot of ways it’s come back better than ever," New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees said.

The Saints have come back better than ever, after temporarily seeking shelter in San Antonio, and that has done a lot to boost morale. But this moment is, without a doubt, the highest point yet.

“We said we were going to keep fighting until they kick us off the field and go home,’’ New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma said.

That’s exactly what the Saints did Sunday night and, really, what their fans have been doing since the hurricane. The Saints beat the heck out of Favre, repeatedly stripped the ball from the hands of Peterson and Harvin and won the turnover battle five to one.

Still, in the end, they needed Favre to try to throw a cross-field pass that turned into an interception near the end of regulation, and a 40-yard field goal by 23-year-old kicker Garrett Hartley to win it nearly five minutes into overtime.

Hartley’s kick replaces Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal as the most famous kick, and probably the most famous play, in New Orleans history.

But you want one play to define this moment and the history of the Saints and New Orleans? Turn back to just before the end of the first half, with the score tied 14-14 and Reggie Bush standing near his own end zone waiting to field a punt.

Bush failed to catch the ball and the Vikings recovered at the New Orleans 10-yard line with 1:13 left in the first half.

"That’s a gut-wrenching feeling," Bush said.

Bush could have been the goat to top all goats in Saints’ history had the Vikings punched in a quick touchdown and gone on to win. Thing is, this time, it didn’t happen.

Two plays later, Favre and Peterson messed up an exchange on a handoff and Fujita recovered. Payton made it a point to have Brees hand the ball to Bush on the next two plays as the Saints ran out the clock.

That was about keeping confidence and a shot at redemption. We’re not just talking about Bush’s confidence or about Bush’s redemption, although he did score the final New Orleans touchdown. We’re talking about redemption for a franchise, a city and an entire region. Bush just happened to sum it all up perfectly in what he did on the field and what he said after the game.

“For anybody who thinks we didn’t deserve to win, they weren’t watching the same game we were," Bush said.

Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas

It's time for Tampa Bay's selection in the readers' mock draft.

This was one of the closest races in the entire NFC South as 14 different players received votes to be taken as the No. 19 pick. Let's put it in your hands to announce the pick.

John in Orlando writes: With pick #19 of the 2009 NFL draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers select, Defensive Tackle Peria Jerry out of The University of Mississippi. In addition, the Bucs also take Smokin Joe Burnett somewhere in the 5-7th rounds. Perfect replacement to Ronde Barber, just saying

Kevin in Tampa writes: Buccaneers should take Peria Jerry. No question this is the Bucs biggest need. If they can't stop the run up the middle this could be a long season.

Eric in Paris writes: The Bucs should take The DT Peria Jerry from Ole Miss. Even if he's not the really big kind of tackle that Bates wants in his system, we really need help in the D-Line. Not sure Michael Johnson is worth this spot.

As I said, the voting was close. Peria won this election by eight votes. Illinois cornerback Vontae Davis finished second and Kansas State quarterback Josh Freeman was third. There also was pretty strong support for Florida State defensive end Everette Brown, but many of you pointed out you think he might be gone before Tampa Bay's pick and I think that's entirely possible.

Florida receiver Percy Harvin and Boston College defensive tackle Ron Brace also were very much in the mix and a lot of you suggested the Bucs could trade down and still draft Brace. I like that scenario, but we'll deal with trades when they happen.

I'll be back in a little while with your pick for Atlanta at No. 24.

Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas

I spent a good chunk of the morning on a conference call with ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. He covered a lot of ground on stuff I'll be writing over the next few weeks.

But I just wanted to share Kiper's assessment of Florida wide receiver Percy Harvin.

"He's Reggie Bush as a Saint," Kiper said. "Not Reggie Bush at USC, but Reggie Bush as a Saint."

The translation is that Kiper views Harvin as a guy who can do a lot of different things -- line up at receiver or in the backfield and as a return man. Kiper said that versatility could give Harvin an edge over other receivers ranked near him. The part about USC is a reminder that Bush hasn't been nearly as dominant as he was in college, but still has been able to contribute in a lot of areas in the NFL.

Kiper said he expects Harvin to go in the middle of the first round. The Saints hold the No. 14 pick, but you can scratch Harvin from their list. They've already got one Bush and plenty of other receivers.

But don't rule out Tampa Bay at No. 19. Kiper still thinks quarterback Josh Freeman is a possibility there, but said he might not be ready to start as a rookie. The Bucs could go defense with their first pick. But adding someone like Harvin might make Luke McCown, who already is in place, look a lot better as the starting quarterback.