The Saints' original plan this season defensively involved a heavy dose of three-safety alignments with Harper, Jenkins and Vaccaro giving coordinator Rob Ryan a more flexible every-down lineup. New Orleans used the scheme successfully in Week 1, but the Saints haven't been able to use it again until last week in Atlanta.

Harper missed seven games with a knee injury and said he just didn't want to mess up all of the good vibrations the defense has exuded in his absence. The veteran strong safety instead added to them in his first extended action since the injury with nine tackles in the Atlanta win, after which he received a game ball from Payton.

"Each game has kind of been patchwork because we haven't all been healthy since Week 2," Jenkins said. "Even I got hurt in that span and Kenny got banged up. Being all back to full speed last week, it all worked really well. I don't think anything got back to me in the secondary as far as runs. We're clicking on all cylinders when you have all of your guys on the field. It's obviously our premier package."

Harper said the one silver lining with missing so much time is that not many teams have seen film of Harper, Vaccaro and Jenkins playing together.

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