Saints take lead in district with 31-13 Falcons win

Jim Mora dropped to his knees in disbelief. Alge Crumpler ripped off his helmet and screamed at his teammates. Finally, Michael Vick delivered an obscene gesture to the crowd as he walked off the field.

The Atlanta Falcons have all the signs of a team falling apart.

Well on their way to another second-half collapse, the Falcons dropped their fourth in a row Sunday with a 31-13 loss to New Orleans. Drew Brees and the Saints struck early with a long touchdown pass, scored again on a desperation throw to end the first half, then finished off a bumbling team that appeared to have Vaseline on its hands.

The Falcons (5-6) dropped five passes, the signature play coming early in the fourth when Roddy White let the ball slip from his hands at the New Orleans 10 with no one around him.

Mora, the Atlanta coach, collapsed on the sideline, while Crumpler threw up his hands and looked toward the Georgia Dome roof. At that point, the Pro Bowl tight end probably wondered what else he could do, having already berated his teammates for their sloppy play earlier in the game.

“We’ve just got to keep fighting,” Vick said. “There’s a lot of guys in that locker room who’ve never been in this situation.”

Vick tried to stay positive in dealing with his teammates, but his frustration boiled over at the end. The quarterback, who rushed for 166 yards, made an obscene gesture with both hands toward Atlanta fans who were heckling him on the way to the locker room. He also appeared to yell an obscenity.

A few hours later, the team released a statement from Vick apologizing for his “inappropriate actions.”

“That’s not what I’m about,” Vick said. “I simply lost my cool in the heat of the moment. I apologize and look forward to putting this incident behind me.”

Coming in with three losses in four games, the Saints (7-4) stunned the Falcons right away when Brees threw a 76-yard touchdown pass to Devery Henderson, who started in place of injured Marques Colston, the team’s top receiver.

“It was a great way to start the game,” said Brees, who completed 21-of-30 for 349 yards n his fifth straight game eclipsing 300 yards.

On the final play of the first half, Brees threw up a “Hail Mary” toward the end zone, and Terrance Copper managed to haul in a 48-yard TD with three defenders around him for a 21-6 lead.

“Out of all the things that happened in this game, that may have been the thing that took the life out of this football team,” Vick said.

Brees managed to avoid the interceptions that plagued him in losses to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

“That will be the emphasis from here on out,” said Brees, who was picked off three times in each of those two games. “When we don’t commit turnovers, it gives us a great chance to win.”

After White’s drop, the Saints finished off the Falcons with John Carney’s 25-yard field goal and Deuce McAllister’s second touchdown run, a 9-yarder with 2:23 remaining.

Vick challenged his NFL record for yards rushing by a quarterback, coming up 7 short of his 173-yard performance in an overtime victory at Minnesota in 2002. But the Falcons’ passing game is a mess, with Vick finishing 9-of-24 for 84 yards.

Atlanta dropped below .500 for the first time since 2003 and appears headed for another dismal finish.

Last season, coming off a trip to the NFC championship game, the Falcons won six of their first eight games. But they went 2-6 the rest of the way, missed the playoffs and failed to break the franchise’s ignominious streak of never having back-to-back winning seasons.

Now, four straight losses after a 5-2 start.

The Saints swept the season series by a combined score of 54-16, having also won easily in Week 3 n their first game back in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans had emotion on their side in that one. This time, all the Saints needed was the Falcons on the other side.

Notes:@ Atlanta DE John Abraham wasn’t very effective in his return from abdominal surgery, failing to make the defensive stats. … Falcons DB Derrick Johnson broke his right arm while covering a punt in the second half and didn’t return. … New Orleans CB DeJuan Groce injured his neck while blocking on a punt return early in the fourth quarter. X-rays were negative.