Week 10 Quick Hits: Rise of the Saints Andy Benoit takes a tour through Sunday's Week 10 games. Share your thoughts: Saints 31, Falcons 27 Good as the Falcons have been this season, few people actually saw them as a legitimate threat to the '72 Dolphins. The story here is the rise of the Saints. Winners in four of their last five, they're now one game away from .500 and on the cusp of the wild-card race. We'll have to wait on the coaches film to render a full opinion on the performance of the Saint defense. It held the Falcons to 46 yards rushing, but that was partly because Matt Ryan & Co. were too busy netting 408 yards through the air. New Orleans's safeties did manage to make a few critical late-game stops in the tight red zone, though. Offensively, you can tell by the way Jimmy Graham is playing that the Saints are once again clicking. Compared with last season, the sensational third-year tight end had been somewhat of an afterthought before injuring his ankle a few weeks ago. With his health back and Darren Sproles out of the lineup, Graham is once again the mismatch-creating focal point of New Orleans's interior passing attack. Both of his touchdowns on Sunday came on designed plays near the numbers. Fittingly, watching Graham on the other sideline was Tony Gonzalez, the pioneer of modern tight ends. Gonzalez himself had two touchdown grabs, becoming just the eighth N.F.L. player with 100 touchdown receptions. Unfortunately, he was unable to register a third score on Atlanta's second-to-last drive. Bengals 31, Giants 13 Perhaps there wouldn't have been some 9,000 empty seats at Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday had the locals known that the visiting Giants would indeed be going all-in for another midseason swoon. The Giants tend to win Super Bowls when they do this, but you can bet Tom Coughlin has little interest in seeing the bright side of a two-game losing streak. The Giants' troubles kicked off right away with a blown coverage involving Corey Webster (who has struggled this season) and safety Stevie Brown on A.J. Green's 56-yard touchdown. Green was the player of the game, though Bengals coaches probably came away more excited about their other wideout, Mohamed Sanu. The rookie from Rutgers saw more snaps than in any game this season and responded with four important catches for 47 yards and a touchdown. Sanu, who earlier this year opened a game at Washington with a 73-yard Wildcat touchdown throw, also took a handoff out of a shotgun backfield. Cincinnati's most glaring deficiency this season has been at the No. 2 wide receiver position. That will soon change if their third-round investment continues to pay dividends. Patriots 37, Bills 31 When Devin McCourty intercepted Ryan Fitzpatrick in the end zone to preserve a 37-31 victory, Bill Belichick and his defensive coordinator, Matt Patricia, looked at each other with shared expressions of relief. The turnover came about only because Fitzpatrick had, in all likelihood, expected the rookie receiver T.J. Graham to run his route in front of, not behind, the deep safety. In other words, it was an offensive mistake, not a great defensive play. All afternoon, Fitzpatrick and the Bills picked apart New England's defense. They ran at will out of the shotgun, taking advantage of two-deep coverages that made for great spacing in the box. They had a field day throwing in the interior zones between the Patriots' linebackers and safeties. They mixed up play-calling well enough to stymie New England's pass rush (save for a few splash plays by Vince Wilfork and Jermaine Cunningham). The dominance was reflected in their staggering 35 first downs. Maybe New England's dreadful defensive performance was an aberration. After all, there were a lot of missed tackles. Or, maybe this vanilla zone group has become easy to figure out. Teams have had no trouble gouging the Patriots with big plays through the air. Now there's film out there that shows how to needle them at the intermediate levels and on the ground. Broncos 36, Panthers 14 It's a good thing Peyton Manning has a Super Bowl ring. Otherwise, tying Dan Marino in career wins (147) and career touchdown passes (420) would have probably ignited a barrage of smarmy one-liners across the Twitterverse. Manning, though a proficient 27/38 for 301 yards, was somewhat of an afterthought in Denver's win at Carolina. Most of the focus was on a Broncos defense that sacked Cam Newton seven times (which meant seven mock Superman celebrations) and, aided by pressure from Von Miller, got a game-changing pick-six from rising corner Tony Carter. That play, plus a Trindon Holliday 76-yard punt return score (in which Holliday actually flipped the ball just short of the goal line but got away with it), was enough to get the Broncos to 6-3 and in firm command of the underwhelming A.F.C. West. Ravens 55, Raiders 20 It's not like anyone for Baltimore turned in the type of superhuman performance that Tampa Bay got from Doug Martin against the Raiders last week. This was just a case of one team pummeling another across the board. Ray Rice had just 68 yards of total offense but spearheaded a balanced attack. No Raven had more than 67 yard receiving, but five Ravens had more than 37 yards receiving. There were only two Raiders turnovers but two scores on special teams (a 105-yard kick return for Jacoby Jones - Jones's N.F.L.- record second return of that distance this season, by the way - and a touchdown for punter/holder Sam Koch off a fake field goal). Despite no dominant individual performances by any Ravens, the Raiders still gave up a franchise-worst 55 points. Vikings 34, Lions 24 Christian Ponder got off the snide, completing 24/32 for 221 yards and 2 scores. But this was another Vikings game decided on the ground, with Adrian Peterson going 61 yards for a touchdown to put the Vikings up by two scores midway through the fourth quarter. Peterson finished with 171 yards on 27 carries - his fourth straight outing where he's topped the century mark by more than 20 yards. Earlier this year, you might recall the Vikings beat the Lions behind 102 yards from their superstar back. That superstar leads the league with 1,128 yards rushing and has the Vikings at 6-4. Forget comeback player of the year - Peterson belongs in the M.V.P. discussion. Bucs 34, Chargers 24 The Bucs ran just 43 plays but managed to post 34 points. Two touchdown returns will do that for you. Tampa Bay's statisticians should find a way to credit Philip Rivers with a touchdown for one of those returns. The pick-six he threw to Leonard Johnson was perhaps the most bizarre head-scratching blunder we've seen this season. Sadly, less than 55,000 people attended this game, even though both clubs came in with respectable 4-4 records. Those who did sojourn to Raymond James Stadium were treated to a pretty fluid contest; each team was penalized just once for five yards. Titans 37, Dolphins 3 At least the Titans learned from their experience against the Bears last week. In a strangely symmetrical flipped script, early in the second quarter their middle linebacker, Colin McCarthy, intercepted Ryan Tannehill and ran it back 49 yards for a touchdown, putting Tennessee up, 21-0. From there, it was Chris Johnson's game to ice. The re-rising star became the first player this season to rush for 100 yards against Miami's D. Johnson has now rushed for 90 yards or more in his last five games after starting the season with four sub-30-yard efforts in his first five outings. Cowboys 38, Eagles 23 Nick Foles didn't play nearly as well as the Fox broadcaster Troy Aikman said he did. Looking confident while walking to the line of scrimmage or having the social awareness to offer encouragement to your offensive linemen during breaks has nothing to do with actual quarterbacking. The Eagles clearly protected Foles in their play-calling with defined reads and simplified progressions. Consequently, their offense became more predictable as the game wore on. We saw the Cowboys tee off on Philadelphia's receivers and offensive line in the second half and score two defensive touchdowns (and it could have been three - a holding penalty by struggling corner Morris Claiborne nullified an Anthony Spencer pick on the 10-yard line). At 3-6 and with a coaching overhaul likely on the horizon, the Eagles now must decide whether to finish the season with Michael Vick or their third-round rookie (who, to be fair, also did a few good things in his N.F.L. debut). You wonder who in the organization will be the one to actually make that decision .. 49ers 24, Rams 24 They say tie games are like kissing your sister. Who knows what that actually means. Really, ties are more like feeling a massive sneeze coming on and then having nothing happen. Or hearing a joke with an unidentifiable punch line. Or watching a soccer match. Unsatisfying as ties are, they're an infrequent but just and necessary occurrence in the N.F.L. When a game is so close that it can't be decided with five full quarters of play, it should be reflected in the standings accordingly. The alternative is going to a college-style red zone shootout, which takes downfield plays and the kicking game completely out of the equation. That's not true football. As it just so happens, this tie occurred in the one game where there was a major clock error. The officials and Candlestick Park timing crew mistakenly allowed 1:12 to tick off the game clock during a first-half measurement. Columnists throughout the West will take this opportunity to get on a high horse and gripe and moan with "shoulda coulda woulda" articles about what impact the additional 1:12 might have had. To those columnists, on behalf of all American sports fans, our response is "give it a rest." Seahawks 28, Jets 7 It's no surprise that the Seattle defense pitched a shutout (the Jets' points came off a Muhammad Wilkerson fumble return). Seattle's suffocating 4-3 zone matched up perfectly to New York's low-octane and limited running and passing games. The Seahawks' defense doesn't beat itself .and the Jets' offense doesn't beat opponents. Mark Sanchez completed just 9 of 22 pass attempts and had a bad interception near Seattle's goal line. That came just one play after a false start by Dustin Keller nullified a third-and-one Tim Tebow conversion. The Tebow experiment hasn't looked worse at any point this season. There was a noticeable disruption to the Jets' timing and rhythm every time he entered the game. This isn't a censuring of the young quarterback; it's a censuring of a Jets coaching staff that doesn't seem to realize there's a reason no other team in pro football has committed so heavily to a dual quarterback offense. Texans 13, Bears 6 How is it in this day and age that Jay Cutler can take a vicious shot to the head, be obviously woozy during a prolonged timeout in front of a national television audience and still trot back on the field? Yes, Cutler sat out the second half with a concussion. But the concussion was sustained with just over 2:30 to go in the first half. Aren't doctors on the sidelines supposed to administer tests and monitor this stuff? Good thing the Bears finally did take Cutler out. It had to be tempting not to. Jason Campbell, a former first-round pick, showed exactly why he wound up becoming a backup. In his angst to avoid mistakes and check the ball down, Campbell left several plays on the field. Give some credit to the Texan defense - their safeties and linebackers covered extremely well all night long. In an illustration of just how versatile this group is, Connor Barwin was particularly impressive down the stretch in picking up Matt Forte out of the backfield.