NEW ORLEANS – Cordarrelle Patterson looked at his cell phone early Sunday evening, after he had made one of the most critical catches in one of the most critical games to deliver one of most critical wins of the Atlanta Falcons' season.

“I got a lot of text messages saying we always give them heart attacks, man,” Patterson said with a laugh.

Of course, he’s not wrong. Watching the Falcons is like being strapped in for 17 straight rides on Millennium Force, with all the drops and turns and a face-pushing-back speed faster than the coaster’s 93 mph top speed.

Falcons coach Arthur Smith often likes to say he doesn’t want soft souls -- and with the Falcons, between their fans and their players, it’s clear few of those exist. Not in the Atlanta locker room and not if you watch the Falcons, either. You can’t be, not after the 27-25 fall-from-ahead-come-from-behind win over the New Orleans Saints to push them again to .500.

What has been created under Smith is a team capable of withstanding its own collapses. In this instance it got the ball back with 1 minute, 1 second to play and found a way to get down the field to win. Situations like this -- needing a late score to win -- have been themes of three of Atlanta’s four victories this season. It has become clear that as the Falcons figure out who they really are this year, it’s rooted in this.

They are a team that probably won’t make it comfortable and can sometimes look really confusing doing it, but they play right to the end. As long as they have Matt Ryan with the ball and a workable amount of time on the clock, he can pull it out or get it close enough for kicker Younghoe Koo to finish it off.

“You are what you repeatedly do," Ryan said. "So when you find ways to get the job done, you’re a team that finds ways to get the job done. So I’d like it to be easier, 31-10, but in this league, it’s just not that way very often and you have to find ways to win these one-score games.

“Been decent at it this year. I think we can continue to improve and hopefully that’ll be the case for us moving forward.”

So much of this, though -- this belief they can win any game no matter the circumstance -- comes from Ryan. He has been around the longest, but he also has had a penchant for thriving in fourth quarter, come-from-behind situations.

Sunday was the 41st game-winning drive of his career, moving him past John Elway for No. 7 all-time. It was his 33rd comeback win, tying him for sixth all-time with Dan Marino and Matthew Stafford. So when he comes into the huddle and tells his teammates let’s go win this thing, they can believe it because he has done it so often.

He did it against Miami this season. And against the Jets. And then again Sunday against the Saints, in a Caesars Superdome so loud it felt like an EDM rave with a football game as the sideshow. Ryan, when he got the ball and completed a 64-yard pass to Patterson down the right sideline -- the same play they ran on the game’s third play, resulting in a 34-yard Patterson completion -- put Atlanta in position. Then Koo, playing the role of want-to-get-home-bartender, flipped off the music and turned off the lights.

“He’s as cool as he can be,” Smith said of Ryan. "... Helps when you have a veteran, Hall-of-Fame type quarterback.”

This isn't all Ryan. Atlanta works on these situations daily in practice. They were part of the closing session of both days of joint practices with Miami in August and often a large portion of team sessions in training camp. While most teams do this, this thought process also has been drilled into the players and coaches for months.

Atlanta remains a team in some ways still figuring itself out. Still trying to figure out which players work best in which situations. But it’s also a team that seems to understand itself and understand its leader, Ryan.

“We’ve got a team that believes,” Smith said.

They believe in Ryan. They believe in the scheme. They believe in each other. And perhaps, they believe they have an identity -- even if it’s one that could be sending fans for ways to calm their stomachs and ease their hearts. Patterson joked, “We just gotta stop giving people heart attacks, man.”

Ideally, the Falcons would not do that. They'd Like to make things a little less stressful down the stretch. So far, that just hasn’t been their way. Their way has been stressful. It has been nail-biting and chaotic and way-closer-than-you-want-it.

But so much of the NFL is like that. And if you can find ways to win in those situations, you go for it. Because you do it often enough, and succeed, it becomes your identity.