ATLANTA — I know what you're thinking, when Garrett Hartley swung and missed — intentionally, it turns out — on a 33-yard field goal try with the New Orleans Saints holding a 26-23 lead over Atlanta just before the two-minute warning on Sunday.

Sean Payton wanted to fake it.

Mark Brunell decided to throw for it.

The Saints coach, we learned afterward, wanted Brunell to run for it.

I'm thinking the Saints should have made a run for the border, ordered some Taco Bell, kicked the field goal and kept their gray matter intact.

Payton played mad scientist, an inclination of his over his four-year tenure in New Orleans, and yeah, it blew up in his face. But he lived to tell about it, because Jonathan Vilma, the big-time middle linebacker they'd needed for years, made a big-time play when the game was on the line.

"It was good by the defense, to help bail me out there," Payton said.

Yeah, it was good.

It was King-Kong good. Reggie Jackson hitting three homers good. And in the Saints' case, it was 13-0 good.

Brunell, 39, made a living with his legs for nine years with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He tried to play quarterback the same way with the Washington Redskins, and, to be kind, he didn't exactly measure up. In New Orleans, he carries Drew Brees' golf clubs. When the game was on the line, Payton wanted Brunell to deliver.

Those Saints fans in Albany, La., the knuckleheads who shot up the big-screen TV last week after the close call against the Redskins, were probably slinging some more lead.

Sure, sure, they're 13-0, and they're going to be playing at home in January, hoping to bring the Saints to the Super Bowl for the first time in the franchise's 43-year history. Payton's an innovative coach, a guy who likes to go for the throat, and that's a good thing. But sometimes, you've got to take the points. This clearly was one of those times.

"It was designed to be a run," Brunell said in a matter-of-fact tone in the winning locker room. "I tried to get it to Darnell, and it was a little late."

Yeah, and that FEMA guy, Michael Brown, realized he had a big-league disaster on his hands "a little late" after Hurricane Katrina, too.

The Saints showed some moxie in this game, with Drew Brees throwing the ball around the lot and his receivers making some tough catches in traffic. They got burned a few times on the blitz, making the pedestrian Chris Redman look a little too much like another University of Louisville product, the late, great Johnny Unitas, but hey, they're 13-0. Give 'em their props.

"You can look in the eyes of your teammates in the huddle," Saints defensive end Will Smith said, "and everybody wants to make a play."

In the final 90 seconds, as we saw Sunday, the leading candidate for the job is Jonathan Vilma, who stopped the Falcons' Jason Snelling with a jarring, sure-handed tackle at the Saints 46-yard line to put the game away.

"We struggled a good bit today, but we finished it off," Vilma said. "When the game is over, the first thing people ask is if you win or lose. That's the most important thing, winning."

That's the Saints' season, in capsule form.

I'm thinking their fans will take it.