An admirable effort. Almost. Annoyingly close.

Take your pick.

Any of those three choices could describe Atlanta’s 34-31 overtime loss to the New York Giants on Sunday.

The Falcons somehow rallied from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit, as the good Matt Ryan showed up once again (take that, you “Matty Choke” folks). But the defense ultimately cost the Falcons the game.

Oh, we’ll get to that porous secondary a bit later, but for now, let’s turn our attention to the pivotal fourth-quarter comeback.

Atlanta appeared hopeless entering the final period, down a pair of scores and without franchise rusher Michael Turner and backup Jerious Norwood.

Ryan engineered a 12-play, six-plus minute drive to cut the score to 31-24 with one tick over six minutes left on the clock. The second-year, often second-guessed quarterback found Michael Jenkins for 21 and nine yards and Tony Gonzalez twice before connecting with Eric Weems on a four-yard pass down the left side to get Atlanta back into contention

The defense finally decided to show up in this one, stopping the Giants on the next drive and leaving Ryan with 3:42 to work his magic.

The Atlanta QB delivered, driving Atlanta down to the 11-yard line before connecting with Gonzalez for a TD pass down the middle of the field to tie it with 28 seconds remaining, sending the game to the extra session.

Tony Gonzalez hauled in this game-tying touchdown pass from Matt Ryan with 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

But the G-Men won the toss and Atlanta’s suspect defense caved, as Giants QB Eli Manning picked apart a weak Atlanta secondary. New York drove down to the Atlanta 18 before Lawrence Tynes connected on a 36-yard field goal to win the game for Big Blue.

An “A” for effort for the Dirty Birds, but a loss nonetheless.

The Falcons will head back from the swamp with that dreaded .500 record, dropping a contest they could ill afford to lose against an opponent in the Wild Card chase.

Without further adieu, let’s get to this week’s the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good: Jason Snelling played well in place of Turner and Norwood, rushing for 76 yards on 25 carries and two scores. You couldn’t have asked for much more from Snelling, who had four very big shoes to fill.

Ryan seemed to answer his critics who had all sorts of nasty things to say about him in the blogosphere after Atlanta’s 28-19 loss against the Carolina Panthers last Sunday.

The former Boston College standout didn’t wilt under the torrent of Giants pressure in this one, efficiently ran the two-minute drill and rallied his team back against the odds in the fourth quarter.

The final results? Ryan completed 26 of 46 passes for 268 yards and two late scores. About the only blemish on the second year QB’s day was a second-quarter fumble that led to a New York score.

The Bad: Two things on the Falcons' side of the ball stood out to me as bad in this one (and then we’ll talk about the Giants).

Michael Koenen was terrible punting the ball in the Meadowlands, even on a day where the fabled winds at the old New Jersey stadium weren’t a factor.

Two punts for 26 yards is terrible by any stretch of the imagination, even though the numbers are a bit deceiving, as the Falcons were in Giants' territory on the first punt.

However, his second punt –- a 28-yard boot from the Atlanta 24 midway through the second quarter -- gave the Giants the ball at midfield. It took just three plays for Manning to punch the ball into the end zone to give the G-Men a 10-3 lead.

And let’s not get started on Jason Elam. Once again, the aging kicker missed a makeable field goal, which ultimately affected the final outcome.

This time, it was a 35-yarder to tie with 2:51 left the second. I don’t know what’s going on with Elam and Koenen, but something seems off with the snaps on field goals. For the second week in a row, the Atlanta field goal specialist stutter-stepped before following through on the attempt for three. The football sailed wide of the mark each time.

Jason Elam reacts after missing what turned out to be a critical 35-yard field goal in the second quarter Sunday.

As a Jets fan who grew up with a father who despised Big Blue with a passion, I couldn’t write this blog entry without giving a little bit of grief to the Giants.

Could their defense get any more penalties in this one?

Ill-advised penalties on Atlanta’s field goal drive in the third quarter kept the Falcons in this one before Big Blue’s D fell apart in the fourth. They were without defensive captain Antonio Pierce on Sunday and were just plain terrible in crunch time.

One has a feeling that good ole Jimmy Hoffa was rolling over in his concrete tomb somewhere in that awful New Jersey mercury-filled swamp-turned sports complex Sunday.

And don’t get me started on Giants Stadium. I hate that place. I don’t know how many times as a kid I was sitting in the upper deck of that sterile stadium freezing my butt off as the Jets got routed by the fill-in-the-blank AFC East team in front of 50,000 no shows only to leave the place to get stuck in a terrible traffic jam and wait a few hours to escape that dump to get over the bridge and out of New York’s version of Alabama.

Why the heck the Jets decided to move across the parking lot and drop down $1 billion along with the Giants to build a new stadium there boggles my mind. Move back to New York, please?

The ugly: Without a doubt, this one goes to the secondary. This was their loss.

Let’s see ... You give up a touchdown in the second quarter because some of you think you are in a zone and others think you are in a man-to-man defense.

Eli Manning has a field day with your blown assignments and sets a career-best with 384 passing yards.

You allow tight end Kevin Boss to totally be the boss of you, connecting for a career-best 76 yards and two scores.

And receiver Mario Manningham gets free six times for 126 yards.

See a pattern here?

New York's Mario Manningham fights off safety Erik Coleman, part of an Atlanta secondary that was burned repeatedly.

You had a feeling that the Falcons would lose this one if the Giants won the toss and the bumbling defense got the ball first in the extra session. They did. Manning went to work and dissected the Atlanta D for the winning score.

Disappointing. Devastating. Disastrous.

Take your pick. Your Atlanta Falcons are a mediocre football team right now.

Up next for the Dirty Birds: The Falcons conceivably get a break with a Sunday afternoon matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Dome. However, the Bucs have been playing better football of late, and Atlanta must resist the temptation to look past them toward Week 13 and 14 matchups against the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints.

-- PHIL FOLEY