Merry Christmas, Atlanta Falcons fans.

The New York Jets just gave you a gift with a pretty little bow on top in the way that only the New York Jets can.

Atlanta’s putrid offense trailed New York, 7-3, but was given one final chance after Chauncey Davis blocked kicker Jay Feeley’s 37-yard field goal attempt with a few ticks over four minutes left at the bitterly cold Meadowlands.

Things did not look good for Matt Ryan and the Falcons, who could not get anything going offensively against a New York defense that had not allowed a TD in 33 drives. But as Gang Green fans know all too well, those kind of fabulous numbers are just window dressing on the next Jets disappointment.

I know this Jets team well. As I said in my prediction, there would be about 20,000 no-shows in the stands after the snowstorm blew through the New York City area. The result would be that the Jets might not show up when it counted.

Oh, did Gang Green ever lay an egg down the stretch.

Ryan looked terrible all day until that final drive, when he found Tony Gonzalez wide open around five Jet defenders for a six-yard TD with 98 ticks remaining. How Gonzalez -- who was pestered all night -- somehow worked his way wide open is a testament to the greatness of the future Hall of Famer and that Joe Willie Namath Jets curse.

Tony Gonzalez celebrates after catching the winning touchdown pass from Matt Ryan late in the fourth quarter Sunday.

That vengeful Falcon will have to wait at least a week to finish the job on his own curse. The Falcons still have a chance to finish the campaign with a winning season thanks to the Jets and Ryan.

Ryan, who was a miserable 10 for 25 for 115 yards prior to the winning drive, completed six of nine for 37 yards, including a 16-yard completion to Roddy White on the last one. Jason Snelling and the dormant Atlanta rushing game, which had amassed just 64 yards on the ground before that last drive, ripped runs of 20 and six yards.

The biggest play on the drive? A costly 15-yard facemask penalty on New York’s Donald Strickland on that White completion. Atlanta, which started the play on life support, went from a 3rd and 8 situation on its own 42, to 1st and 10 at the Jets 27.

When so-called curses collide, one of the curses continues while the other is suspended for another day.

For the Falcons, hope at a winning season remains. For the Jets, a familiar mantra remains:

Just

Enough

To

Stink

It’s good to see that some things don’t change.

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

The Good: Three things stood out for the Dirty Birds in this one.

With the exception of a play here or there, the defense showed up huge, keeping the New York rushing game in check and pestering Jets QB Mark Sanchez all afternoon. Sanchez was sacked twice and threw three interceptions, and Thomas Jones was held to just 52 yards on the ground. New York mustered just one touchdown.

The defense also kept the Jets grounded in Falcons territory and Atlanta’s special teams unit picked things up from there. A blocked field goal. A muffed snap. A miss. Thanks to the defense and the special teams, Atlanta somehow escaped with a win.

The other game ball goes to Ryan and Gonzalez, who persevered in a hostile environment.

Jets fans gave a new meaning to the word “crunch time.” As the Falcons faced a crucial 4th-and-goal from the Jets 6, mischievous Gang Green supporters hurled snowball after snowball toward the rallying Atlanta offense.

Nevertheless, Ryan and Gonzalez remained composed. As those mean-spirited balls of ice, snow and God-knows-what else went crunch all around them, Gonzalez found a seam in the New York D and Ryan torpedoed a perfect pass to the future Hall of Fame lock.

The Falcons won the game.

The Bad: Snelling’s 20-yard scamper on Atlanta’s winning drive allowed the Atlanta rushers to avoid this week’s “ugly” distinction. Barely.

You had a feeling it was going to be a long afternoon for the Atlanta runners after Michael Turner lasted one play before leaving with that all-too-familiar right ankle injury.

Truth be told, Atlanta’s running attack was awful on a cold, blustery day when it needed to be on the top of its game. You knew the passing game was not going anywhere in the swirling Meadowlands winds.

And generally, 86 yards of rushing isn’t going to get the job done. But these ugly stats get overlooked thanks to Atlanta’s defense and Ryan’s winning drive. Snelling, Turner and Jerious Norwood owe the defense a dinner.

Outside of one big run on Atlanta's winning drive, Jason Snelling was not very productive in place of Michael Turner.

The Ugly: Two things stood out here as well.

The first is Feeley and the Jets.

Three times you had a chance at a field goal and three times, you came up empty. I’ve seen a lot of terrible Jets losses in my day and can’t say that I was surprised about the outcome – as Falcons fans can also attest to, you kind of get used to this kind of disappointment. But if you don’t muff the snap, don’t kick it wide right, don’t get the field goal blocked, it’s a totally different ball game.

Perhaps the Falcons running backs should take Feeley out to dinner, too. He cost the Jets the game.

And for double-bagger No. 2, we turn our attention for the first time this season to the television coverage.

Dick Stockton has been around for a long time and has been behind the microphone for a ton of great moments in sports history. But there is a reason why he was demoted to Fox’s No. 5 team. He was terrible.

I pulled double-duty for this one, watching the game for this humble blog as well as backing up the venerable Stats, LLC folks at Giants Stadium by putting in play-by-play stats off of the local television feed. Stockton made my life miserable by occasionally getting the spot wrong. OK, fair enough, that happens.

However, he also thought that Kellen Clemens’ muffed snap on Feeley’s second quarter field goal attempt was a designed fake. And perhaps most puzzlingly, Stockton opined that the Falcons had tied the game when they went ahead for the winning score.

I am sure I was not the only one yelling at the TV that the long-time play-by-play guy had the score wrong. Maybe it’s time Stockton just sticks to basketball.

Up next for the Dirty Birds: The Falcons head back to the Dome for a Week 16 matchup against the struggling Buffalo Bills (5-9). Atlanta needs to run the table against Buffalo and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finish 9-7 and break the dreaded zero back-to-back winning seasons curse.

-- PHIL FOLEY