Roddy White | Atlanta Falcons Tickets

Falcons Shoot for a Rarity: A Playoff Win

Since 2008, when Mike Smith became head coach and Thomas Dimitroff became general manager, the Falcons have had four consecutive winning seasons. But that next step for the franchise has been onto an ice-covered ledge. They are 0-2 in the playoffs, with a and a .

“It’s about time we won, it’s about time we got a W,” said wide receiver Roddy White, who has been with the organization since 2005. “Everybody wants to win really, really bad, and get that first one out of the way.”

Asked what a playoff loss to the Giants on Sunday would mean, White said: “It’ll be devastating because this will be our third opportunity and we came up short. It’ll be tough for a whole ’nother six months.”

The franchise did not give up four draft picks and swap first-round selections in the 2011 draft with Cleveland to sixth over all, only to be flattened against the same ceiling. The Falcons drafted the explosive Jones and signed the pass-rush specialist Ray Edwards to break through and close the gap with Green Bay and New Orleans, the two dominant teams in the N.F.C.

The , but they beat just two teams with winning records, Detroit and Tennessee. They were clobbered on the road by New Orleans, 45-16, yet fought the Saints and the Packers at home before losing close games to both.

The Falcons have skill on offense with quarterback Matt Ryan, tight end Tony Gonzalez, running back Michael Turner, and White, but the running game and the red-zone offense have wobbled at times, and the defense lacks a star in the secondary.

On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, the Falcons understand that they will be branded as just another team, or a really good team.

“There’s a lot of pressure to win, and to relieve that pressure, we need to win a playoff game,” offensive tackle Tyson Clabo said. “We’re not just trying to win one playoff game, we’re trying to win four. If we win one and then lose, it’s just as disappointing to us.

“The goal is the . If you don’t get there, what’s the difference between losing Sunday or losing another game after that?”

Turner said the Falcons could not let the stage Sunday overwhelm them. They cannot have wide eyes and rabbit ears, and become distracted.

He was asked what the Falcons learned from two playoff losses. “Play smarter in those games; we made some critical mistakes,” Turner said. “Don’t let the games get too big for us.”

Turner said that although the Falcons were a young team in the past, “I think we have the experience under us now that we can actually make a push.”

The Falcons went 43 seasons without having back-to-back winning seasons, but the climate has changed significantly. They are long past being lampooned, and are instead seen as reliable and trustworthy because of Smith, Dimitroff and the owner Arthur Blank.

The Falcons are not as beloved here as the University of Georgia football program, or Southeastern Conference football in general, but the momentum from season after season of being a Super Bowl contender — and a playoff win or two — can change the status of the brand. The organization wants to use some public money to build a $750 million open-air stadium in the next five to six years to replace the outdated Georgia Dome, and postseason success can only make that a smoother path.

White said the message from Smith this week was that the Falcons had plenty of seasoning to win a playoff game on the road. They have 41 players on their 53-man roster who have playoff experience, and that is something to lean on.

“It’s time for everyone to take their game to the next level,” White said. “We’ve all played in playoff games, so it’s time for us to go win one.”

THE FIFTH DOWN; Defenses Give Edge to the Giants and the Steelers

Lions (10-6) at Saints (13-3)

Saturday, 8 p.m.

Line: Saints by 10.5

From the birth of the N.F.L. until 1960, no quarterback ever threw for more than 3,000 yards. As recently as 1997, it was still possible for Jeff George to lead the league with less than 4,000 yards passing: 3,917, to be exact. For most of football’s history, a 3,000-yard season was an accomplishment, 4,000 yards were a feat and 5,000 yards marked the distance from home to the nearest hardware store, not an attainable passing goal.

Saturday will mark the first time that two quarterbacks who threw for over 5,000 yards in a season will face each other. While Drew Brees – who broke Dan Marino’s single-season record by throwing for 5,476 yards – is getting his due as one of the league’s best passers, Matthew Stafford (5,038) could not even muster a Pro Bowl selection. Stafford’s numbers are partially a reflection of passing inflation, but he has also been unfairly overshadowed this season, not just by Brees and Aaron Rodgers, the favorite to be the N.F.L.’s most valuable player, but by his own team’s tortuous climb out of a decade-long funk, the acrobatic excellence of his best receiver and his defense’s attempt to jump-start the economy by increasing the demand for yellow penalty flags.

When the Lions have the ball The Lions use shotgun formations on 68 percent of all offensive plays, the highest percentage in the N.F.L. (the league average is 40.1 percent). Stafford’s primary weapon, Calvin Johnson, was the third-most targeted receiver in the league with 158 passes. (Atlanta’s Roddy White and New England’s Wes Welker finished first and second.) Johnson compensates for the Lions’ poor running game by doubling as the team’s top threat in the red zone: he has caught nine touchdowns passes on plays that start inside the 20-yard line. Tight ends Brandon Pettigrew and Tony Scheffler also make great short-yardage options (10 combined red-zone targets), and they work underneath so the rookie receiver Titus Young can supplement Johnson as a deep threat. The Lions have running backs, but they ignore them, and you can, too.

Gregg Williams’s blitz-heavy defense yielded just 33 sacks and 16 takeaways this season. Only the Patriots and the Packers allowed more passing yards than the Saints, and they compensated by producing 31 and 23 interceptions to the Saints’ nine. Many of those passing yards were the result of opponents trying to keep pace with the Saints’ offense, but Williams does not have the same manpower he had when the Saints reached the Super Bowl two years ago.

When the Saints have the ball Whole articles can be filled with impressive Brees statistics, but we will settle for one: his completion percentage over the last three seasons is 69.9, better than all but three quarterbacks have ever mustered in a single season. Sean Payton’s offense makes the most of Brees’s accuracy and ability to distribute the ball to legions of potential targets. Nine different players have caught at least 10 passes for the Saints this season, led by Jimmy Graham, a college basketball forward turned mismatch nightmare at tight end. Despite their reputation as a pass-happy team, the Saints often line up in the I-formation and pound the ball. Saints running backs combined for 2,127 yards, and Brees’s long touchdown throws are often set up by play-fakes.

The Lions’ notorious defensive line recorded just 36 sacks this season, though they committed 43 penalties in the process. The Lions rarely blitz, so while their sack totals are low, Cliff Avril, Ndamukong Suh, Kyle Vanden Bosch and their linemates provide enough pressure for Jim Schwartz to keep seven defenders back in coverage, minimizing the risk of breakdowns.

Pick In what will probably be a shootout, the Lions’ inability to run the football and their tendency to spot opponents 100 penalty yards will matter much more than their lack of postseason experience. Saints

Bengals (9-7) at Texans (10-6)

Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

Line: Texans by 3

Falcons Can’t Keep Up With Brees, Saints

Now the gap seems much wider.

Drew Brees set the NFL record for yards passing in a season, breaking a mark that Dan Marino had held for nearly three decades, and New Orleans clinched the NFC South title with a 45-16 victory over the Falcons on Monday night.

Brees threw for 307 yards and four touchdowns, the last a 9-yard strike to Darren Sproles that set the record with 2:51 to go.

Falcons coach Mike Smith was quick to congratulate Brees and also to criticize his own squad, which came in hoping to remain in the hunt to repeat as division champions.

“We didn’t really play well enough in any phase of the game to give ourselves a chance to win,” Smith said. “There were some opportunities early on, and then it kind of got out of hand there at the end. … It’s not the type of effort that you want to have with so much on the line with what the outcome could have meant to our team.”

Matt Ryan had 373 yards passing and one TD, including a 21-yard scoring strike to Julio Jones that gave the Falcons (9-6) a 10-7 lead late in the first quarter. But that turned out to be Atlanta’s only touchdown and the Saints (12-3) took the lead for good on their next drive when Brees hit Marques Colston for an 8-yard score.

“We have to get a lot better in the red zone,” Ryan said. “We needed a lot more touchdowns than the field goals we got out there.”

Atlanta finished with 469 total yards, six more yards than New Orleans, only to lose by more than four touchdowns. However, a lot of the Falcons’ yards came through the air after they were behind and had to abandon the running game, which accounted for only 35 yards.

Jones had eight catches for 128 yards and Roddy White had 11 catches for 127 yards.

Brees broke Marino’s record on his final throw of the game and it gave him 5,087 yards passing — with one game still to play. Marino finished with 5,084 yards for the Miami Dolphins in 1984.

Minutes after Brees broke the record, Marino offered congratulations on his Twitter account.

“Great job by such a special player,” Marino wrote.

As Sproles spiked the ball, Brees thrust his fist triumphantly in the air and started walking toward midfield while the Superdome crowd went wild and his teammates chased him down. Offensive guard Carl Nicks was the first one to get there and tried to lift Brees onto his shoulder, but couldn’t do it as teammates swarmed around.

“If I could have put him on my shoulders and paraded him around the whole stadium I would have done that. He deserves it,” Nicks said. “It’s like a movie, man. Just a movie ending. It’s beautiful. … You could tell by everyone’s reaction after he did it how much people care about that guy. We all love him.”

Brees’ four touchdown passes gave him 276 for his career, moving him ahead of Joe Montana (273) and Vinny Testaverde (275) for ninth all-time. He is the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for more than 5,000 yards twice — he had 5,069 in 2008.

“Honestly, I was really trying not to think about the record or anything,” Brees said. “I knew we were close. A couple guys mentioned stuff to me on the sideline. I didn’t want to hear it. It’s like a pitcher with a no-hitter, I guess.”

Brees’ second scoring pass went for 9 yards to Jimmy Graham. In the third quarter, Brees hit Robert Meachem for a score from 24 yards out, which made it 28-10.

Brees might have broken Marino’s record in the third quarter if not for Sproles’ 92-yard kickoff return, which set up John Kasay’s 29-yard field goal. Brees also was intercepted twice, once in the Falcons end zone, but New Orleans was still dominant enough to take a big lead.

The game became a romp when Jones was stripped by Scott Shanle and Malcolm Jenkins returned it 30 yards for a score to make it 38-16 in the fourth quarter. The Superdome crowd was in full celebration by then, but the play also meant fans would have to wait until later in the fourth quarter before Brees finally got his chance to break the passing record.

Atlanta is headed to the playoffs as a wild card and could potentially be back in New Orleans again in two weeks.

“We don’t care which team we have to play. We are in the playoffs,” running back Michael Turner said.

Both teams scored on all their possessions in the opening quarter, with the Saints briefly pulling in front 7-3 on Pierre Thomas’ 4-yard touchdown run, after which he pulled a bow from his uniform pants, put it on the football and offered it as a gift to a woman with a parasol in the front row behind the end zone.

The referees weren’t cutting Thomas any slack on his Christmas-themed celebration, flagging him for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Notes: Atlanta’s defense allowed the Saints to convert 10 of 13 third downs. … Brees has passed for 300 yards or more an NFL-record 12 times this season. … New England quarterback Tom Brady could also pass Marino next week — and maybe Brees, too. Brady has thrown for 4,897 yards this season. … The Falcons were 0 for 3 on fourth-down attempts.