With Sunday’s 34-24 win over the San Diego Chargers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers now have three wins in a row and have won four of five since their bye week .

The Buccaneers have been getting it done with offense lately, but on Sunday their victory was sealed by the two other phases of play—defense and special teams.

In the second quarter with the Bucs down 14-10, Dakoda Watson blocked a Mike Scifres punt and Adam Hayward picked it up and ran it back 29 yards for a touchdown and a three-point 17-14 lead.

The teams traded touchdown passes until early in the fourth quarter when the Chargers were driving to either tie the game or go ahead with a touchdown. That is until cornerback Leonard Johnson picked off a Philip Rivers pass at the Bucs' 17-yard line and took it all the way back to the house for a touchdown and a 10-point lead.

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Don’t look now, but with their 31-27 victory over the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, the New Orleans Saints have won four of their last five games and are moving in the right direction.

They’re headed towards the playoffs.

The Saints’ record still sits at just 4-5, but over the last few weeks this New Orleans team has made adjustments and looks to be growing in strength. There are still seven games left on the schedule and the Saints likely need to win at least six of them, but there are many reasons to believe that this team can beat anyone.

Goal-line Defense

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On a day that should have been all smiles and sunshine, the Atlanta Falcons fell to the New Orleans Saints 31-27, ending hope for a perfect 16-0 season.

Before six minutes had come off the clock, the Falcons had a 10-point lead. Quarterback Matt Ryan threw for a career-high 411 yards and tight end Tony Gonzalez not only blew past the 1,200-catch mark for his career—a feat only Jerry Rice had done prior—but he caught his 100th-career touchdown pass.

Everything was going Atlanta’s way until the defense forgot how to tackle, until the defense learned there was no way to cover Saints tight end Jimmy Graham and until the offense found that Atlanta’s rushing attack was more of a weak slap than a hard-hitting weapon.

The Falcons blew a number of tackles and miscalculated frequently on angles of tackle, allowing Chris Ivory to carve up the defense for 67 first-half rushing yards and Mark Ingram to notch 40. New Orleans averaged 80 yards per game entering Week 10 but entered the half with 116 because the defensive line was porous and the second and third wave of defenders forgot grade-school fundamental tackling.

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The Sporting News asked 103 NFL players from 27 teams a series of questions, and interestingly, one focused on naming a head coach the player wouldn't want to play for:

Narrowly edging New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was new Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano. To be listed as the No. 1 answer less than one year into his tenure in Tampa means Schiano is doing everything right.

It's no secret that Schiano's players love playing for him in Tampa Bay. His players rave about the energy he puts forth, and he completely won the team over by handling the Ronde Barber move to safety with elegance and respect.

It's the players that play against Schiano that seem to hate the man. But there's nothing wrong with that. To be loved in his own locker room and hated everywhere else screams that he's doing his job and that the product he's putting on the field is feared to some extent.

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At 3-5 and with the tumultuous offseason that has plagued the New Orleans Saints, it’s crazy to think that this team has a shot at making it into postseason play. The margin of error is razor-thin, but if the Saints can win seven of their last eight games, New Orleans might have a shot at a wild-card spot.

The team has taken on the metaphor of their playoff push being a mountain to climb, and boy is that mountain steep. Forget that the Saints will have to go 7-1 (my opinion is that 10 wins is the minimum to get into the playoffs); they’ll have to face teams with a current combined record of 40-25, including matchups against four current division leaders.

To get to where New Orleans needs to be it will have to find a way to only lose once amidst a remaining schedule that includes the Atlanta Falcons twice, the Oakland Raiders, the San Francisco 49ers, the New York Giants, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Dallas Cowboys and the Carolina Panthers.

The Saints will also have to find ways to fix the myriad of problems that have plagued the team in the first half.

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The Atlanta Falcons are the toast of the league as its sole remaining unbeaten team.

At 8-0, not only are the Falcons flying high (pun intended), but because of many missteps from their NFC South counterparts,Atlanta enjoys a four-game lead over its closest competitor, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Falcons’ record and division lead is extremely healthy. But how healthy is this team as a whole? Here are some notable aspects surrounding the team thus far, as the Falcons look ahead at eight more games.

An Elite NFL Quarterback

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Directly after the 2012 NFL draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were give high grades by most media outlets. With three picks in the first two rounds, it was easy to see the upside potential from these rookies.

No one knew just how good and how quickly safety Mark Barron, running back Doug Martin and linebacker Lavonte David would explode.

David leads the team in tackles, with Barron behind him in third place. Martin, with 794 yards rushing, is third in the NFL in yards. This trio has performed beyond expectations.

"The things they've been able to do so early on have been extraordinary,'' third-year defensive tackle Gerald McCoy told the Tampa Tribune Monday, less than 24 hours after Tampa Bay beat the Raiders 42-32 to snap an 0-5 mark at Oakland.

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As bad as the New Orleans Saints defense was Monday night, there were signs from this much-maligned unit that enough of a turnaround might be on the horizon.

From the opening series, the Saints on defense looked different. Sure, there were the missed tackles that have been an unpopular trademark for this 2012 unit. Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles were able to move the ball into New Orleans territory and sustain a 14-play drive. But there was something new as well.

Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo dialed up the aggressiveness for the Saints defense in Monday’s 28-13 win over the Eagles, and the front four produced three sacks on Philadelphia’s first drive.

The Saints' inability to stop opposing teams from rushing the football crept up later in the first quarter as the Eagles gained 47 yards on the ground in three plays and drove into the Saints’ red zone.

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