ATLANTA – New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees continued his salute to childhood hero Ted Williams, the profane-but-intellectual baseball great whose No. 9 Brees wears as appreciation.

By contrast, Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick's most notable moment Sunday was a profane salute to his home fans during the Saints' 31-13 victory.

Brees posted his fifth consecutive 300-yard game and added two touchdown passes as he hit big play after big play against the Falcons. That allowed New Orleans to take control of the NFC South at 7-4, a game ahead of Carolina (6-5) and two over Atlanta (5-6).

Brees began delivering the big plays early – connecting with Devery Henderson on a 76-yard touchdown pass on the opening series of the game, a play that had the Falcons wobbling on the way to a bad day. A play that also left Michael Vick making profane gestures.

The home fans started booing early and often. Vick responded by flipping them his own version of a dirty bird with each hand. Television

The Denver Broncos will make it official Monday that they have switched quarterbacks from 10-year veteran Jake Plummer to rookie Jay Cutler even though they are in the midst of the playoff race, according to a league source. Cutler's first start will come against the Seahawks on Dec. 3.

Broncos coach Mike Shanahan made the decision known to several members of the team's staff Saturday and word leaked by early Sunday. The Broncos are 7-4 and currently in third place in the AFC West behind San Diego (8-2) and Kansas City (7-4).

Plummer played poorly in the Broncos' 19-10 loss to Kansas City on Thanksgiving Day. He struggled again in the fourth quarter, a week after having an interception and two fumbles in the fourth quarter of a loss to San Diego.

Cutler was the No. 11 pick in the NFL draft in April and played impressively in training camp. However, Shanahan stuck with Plummer, hoping the veteran would improve upon his career-best 2005 season when he helped lead the Broncos to the AFC

KANSAS CITY – No words were spoken between Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green and referee Bill Vinovich, who stood alongside Green in the backfield midway through the fourth quarter. All they did was look at each other, admiring the work of Chiefs running back Larry Johnson on one of the more spectacular carries you will see from any running back.

"It was just one of those looks like, 'Yeah, that was pretty unbelievable,'" Green said.

Johnson's 15-yard run in the fourth quarter exemplified a night that may have changed the AFC West and the conference playoff race in a significant way. With Johnson posting his second 150-plus yard rushing game in the span of five days, Kansas City brushed aside Denver 19-10 at Arrowhead Stadium on Thanksgiving Day.

It was Kansas City's fifth win in the past six games, a half-dozen outings defined by Johnson's unique blend of power and grace. With that, the Chiefs now stand at 7-4 after opening the season at 2-3 and not looking so good in the

Too small, too limited, too hurt.

Quarterback Drew Brees, who at a relatively skinny 6-foot tall looks more like the NFL's version of St. Louis Cardinal David Eckstein, has heard it all about how he wasn't supposed to make it. Then, he heard how he wasn't supposed to make it back. Now, about the only thing people want to know is how Brees is going to help the New Orleans Saints make it to the playoffs.

Brees, coming off a 510-yard passing performance (sixth most in NFL history) in a loss to Cincinnati, wasn't expected to have yet another productive season, many medical experts thought. However, he has overcome odds that make trying to reach the postseason seem like a … breeze.

Despite his outstanding numbers, which include a league-high 3,114 yards passing, New Orleans has lost three of its past four games. The Saints (6-4), who were the darlings of the first half of the season in their return to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, are now in a three-team jumble for the NFC South

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The way to fix New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning's current problems is to ask more of him.

That might sound like an odd way to break Manning's six-game slump, which hit rock bottom Monday night, but it may very well take unorthodox measures to snap him out of this funk. Over the past six games, Manning has completed only 51 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions. Those mediocre numbers are hardly representative of Manning's talent, which made him the No. 1 overall pick in 2004.

Moreover, at a time when the Giants (6-4) need Manning to be at his best, he is shrinking. Against the Jaguars, Manning was downright awful in a 26-10 loss. Through three quarters, he completed only eight of 24 passes for 102 yards with an interception and a touchdown pass. His final numbers (19-of-41 for 230 yards) looked salvageable only after some garbage-time stats in the fourth quarter, by which time the Jaguars were in control.

While the Giants are

Sorry to have missed last week's edition of the mailbag, but hopefully this scattershot version will suffice.

HALL OF FAME THOUGHTS ("Power struggle," Nov. 2, 2006)
No mention of (Buffalo Bills owner) Ralph Wilson going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame? He is one of the few owners left who has been with his team since its inception (40-plus years) and (Kansas City Chiefs owner) Lamar Hunt is in the Hall. While I appreciate (Dallas owner) Jerry Jones' contributions, I think Ralph Wilson deserves mention before Jones or (former Cowboys/Dolphins coach) Jimmy Johnson.

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous, I think Wilson is a fine man and has been a good owner. I'm just not quite sure what he has really done for the NFL. Hunt had a much greater impact on the development of the league because of his hand in the creation of the AFL. To me, if you simply vote for every long-time owner, you have to put guys like William Ford (Lions), Bill Bidwill (Cardinals) and Art Modell (formerly of the Browns/Ravens)

BALTIMORE – Quarterback Michael Vick left the field at M&T Bank Stadium in an oddly happy mood after the Atlanta Falcons dropped their third straight game and fell to 5-5 Sunday. If one of the NFL's most talented athletes was frustrated, he had a funny way of showing it.

Vick smiled jovially as he hugged teammates and opponents. Somewhere in Vick's mind, it seemed, there was nothing more he could have done to avoid the 24-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. Vick, who completed 11 of 21 passes for 127 yards and rushed for a team-high 54, confirmed that after the game when he turned his smiles into a frown for the media.

"I can't do it all myself," Vick said when asked about one of several plays that went awry in the second half. During the final 30 minutes, the Falcons went from being up 7-0 to essentially being blown out by the Ravens (8-2) and quarterback Steve McNair, who closed within one game of Indianapolis for the best record in the NFL.

Of course, Vick is right: He can't do it all.

Many fans of the Washington Redskins got what they wanted this week when coach Joe Gibbs made the announcement that second-year quarterback Jason Campbell will take over as the starter for Mark Brunell.

But as teams around the NFL have seen this season, changing quarterbacks is not an immediate cure. The Redskins are the 11th team to use a quarterback other than the normal starter. The Pittsburgh Steelers were first, turning to Charlie Batch in the opener after Ben Roethlisberger had an emergency appendectomy.

And while most Redskins fans might believe that the season can't get much worse than the current 3-6 mark, the performance of most of the backup quarterbacks would indicate that it's going to be rough going forward. The 10 who have already started this season are a combined 20-27.

Here's a look at the group:

• Charlie Batch (1-0), Pittsburgh: Batch opened the season with a bang, throwing two touchdown passes in a win over Miami before retreating to the bench. Some Steelers fans