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Harrington lifts Falcons past Panthers

Nov 11, 2007 - 11:14 PM CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Ticker) -- A bye week apparently worked wonders for the Atlanta Falcons.

Joey Harrington threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Alge Crumpler with 20 seconds to play to lift the Falcons to a 20-13 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday.

It was the second straight victory for Atlanta (3-6) since coming off their bye week, which had been preceded by a three-game losing streak.

"I think the thing I'm most happy about is winning the game in the fourth quarter," Falcons coach Bobby Petrino said. "That's something that we've been talking a lot about and working hard at. We had some earlier in the season that we didn't get it done in the fourth quarter. We certainly found a way to today, and that's a good thing."

Warrick Dunn accounted for 140 yards and scored on a 30-yard run as the Falcons kept the Panthers (4-5) winless at home in four games this season.

Coming off a 100-yard rushing game against the San Francisco 49ers, Dunn carried 26 times for 89 yards and had three receptions for 51 more.

"I just felt like I needed to go out there and continue to play hard and motivate my guys to continue to play hard, but also make plays when given the opportunity," Dunn said. "I tried to play within myself and take what they were giving me."

Carolina has lost three consecutive games and six in a row at home, with its last victory in front of their own fans coming on November 19, 2006.

The Panthers have managed to scored just 24 points in their recent three-game skid.

"Really we're not playing well enough to generate enough points," Carolina coach John Fox said. "We're going to have to get that fixed. We're going to continue to work at it. I don't care who you play, you have to score points. We're going to continue to work at it."

Harrington finished 19-of-26 for 192 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions.

On the go-ahead score, Harrington found Crumpler over the middle and the tight end went untouched into the end zone.

"It was just a catch-and-run, I've done that several times in my career," Crumpler said. "But it's not about me, it's about our team punting it away to win the game. We won the game in the fourth quarter last week against San Francisco and we found a way this week. That's huge for us, we haven't won back-to-back games this season."

Harrington absorbed a hard hit just as he released the pass.

"I knew I could get the ball out. I saw Alge come open and then I listened to the crowd," Harrington said. "You learn to do that as a quarterback. You let go of the ball and you listen to the crowd."

Trailing, 10-7, at the half, Atlanta moved ahead on a pair of field goals by 45-year-old Morten Andersen.

A pair of short punts by Carolina's Jason Baker gave the Falcons excellent field position and they converted both times.

Andersen tied it at 10-10 with a 36-yard field goal with 3:24 left in the third quarter. It was the 2,500th career point for Anderson, the first player in NFL history to reach that mark.

Early in the fourth quarter, Andersen added a 47-yarder - tying his season long - to give Atlanta a 13-10 lead with 11:35 to play in the game.

Carolina finally got untracked and moved 66 yards in 10 plays for the tying field goal.

Held to 37 total yards in the second half midway through the fourth quarter, 43-year-old quarterback Vinny Testaverde had completions of 24 yards to tight end Jeff King and 21 yards to Steve Smith, setting up John Kasay's 32-yard field goal to make it 13-13 with 3:35 to go.

Testaverde, who will turn 44 on Tuesday, started despite a nagging Achilles tendon injury. David Carr had been ruled out of the game with a concussion, leaving undrafted rookie Matt Moore as the other option.

"We had a game plan and Vinny executed the best he could," Fox said. "I think he had some soreness I'm sure. As I've mentioned before, there are a lot of guys in the NFL with soreness at this stage of the season. He was healthy enough to play."

Outplayed for most of the first half, Carolina rode its defense and special teams to score 10 points in the final 4 1/2 minutes and take a 10-7 lead at the break.

Dunn's 30-yard touchdown run provided the only scoring of the first quarter and gave the Falcons a 7-0 lead.

It stayed that way until cornerback Ken Lucas scooped up a fumble by rookie receiver Laurent Robinson and returned it 27 yards for a touchdown to pull the Panthers even at 7-7 with 4:20 left in the half.

"Every time the ball hits the ground we are trained to pick it up and run with it," Lucas said. "Fortunately for us it did count and I was able to take it in for a score."

Just under two minutes later, Ryne Robinson had a 33-yard punt return to set up Carolina at the Falcons 35 with 2:29 to go.

The Panthers were unable to move the ball, but a face-mask penalty on Jonathan Babineaux helped set up Kasay's 29-yard field goal as time expired in the first half to give Carolina a 10-7 lead.