ATLANTA — The Falcons beat a struggling, injured team on Sunday. That’s meant as a compliment. Good NFL teams handle their business in situations like this. The Falcons did that against the Cowboys at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The 27-21 victory was Atlanta’s fifth in the last six games. The Falcons are 6-3. That’s their best record after nine games since 2016, when they also were 6-3.

“I know he wants more than six wins,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said while pointing out franchise owner Arthur Blank. “And I know it’s my job to go out there and get it. This organization deserves more. This team deserves. These coaches deserve more.

“And we are hungry, man. We just want to go out there and keep getting it.”

The Falcons lost game No. 10 during the 2016 season, when they went to the Super Bowl. If they win at New Orleans next week — they’ll be favored to do so — it will be their best 10-game mark since they were 9-1 in 2012. The Falcons lost in the NFC championship game to end that season.

I’m not ready to say the current Falcons are good enough to make a deep playoff run. They lost by 20 points at home to the mediocre Seahawks two weeks ago. The defense showed cracks against Dallas that better opponents can exploit. The Cowboys might have rallied if Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott hadn’t missed the entire fourth quarter with a hamstring injury.

But the one thing we already know about the Falcons is they’ve developed an offense that is tough to stop. Is the group coming together like quarterback Kirk Cousins envisioned when he agreed to sign with the Falcons in March?

“It’s so week-to-week,” Cousins said. “Certainly, that Pittsburgh game wasn’t what I envisioned. The Kansas City game wasn’t what I envisioned. The Seattle game wasn’t what I envisioned. So, it goes both ways, and even in some of our wins, you feel like there’s a lot more that we’re capable of.”

That was the case on Sunday. The Falcons couldn’t run the ball effectively. They converted just four-of-13 third downs (though, crucially, they were two for two on fourth downs). The Cowboys forced a turnover when Carl Lawson beat Kyle Pitts and dislodged the ball from Cousins.

But there was a lot more good than bad for Atlanta’s offense. Cousins picked the Cowboys apart with 222 yards passing on 24 attempts with three touchdowns. Three different wide receivers had TD catches: Drake London, Darnell Mooney and Ray-Ray McCloud. Running back Bijan Robinson (145 yards on 25 touches) hurt the Cowboys rushing and receiving.

The Falcons seemingly were in control after Tyler Allgeier’s touchdown run swelled their lead to 27-13 with 11:08 to play. But they went three-and-out on their next two possessions. Prescott’s backup, Cooper Rush, engineered a touchdown drive to make his teams deficit six points with 1:24 left. The Falcons had to recover an onside kick to secure the victory.

It wasn’t a strong finish for the Falcons. Mostly everything before that was good. The defense forced two turnovers on downs in the first three quarters and never allowed Prescott to get comfortable in the pocket. The Cowboys dared Cousins to beat them passing, so that’s what he did.

The Falcons have a good rushing offense, and the Cowboys have a bad rushing defense. I thought that if the Falcons were going to win, it would be via the run.

“They probably thought the same thing, they’ve got to go buckle down on the run,” Morris said of the Cowboys. “But that opens up things for us on the back end. You open things up on the back end for us, it can get ugly for you.”

Said Cousins: “It’s so fun to be a progression passer and have an offensive line that gives you the time to tick through.”

Cousins is a year removed from surgery to repair a rupture to his right Achilles tendon. He said he’s been “feeling pretty confident as of late” about the foot and doesn’t think about it much while playing because it’s “so sturdy that I trust it.” In fact, Cousins said he wished he’d taken advantage of a few chances to run for yards against the Cowboys.

His passing was enough to keep the visitors on their heels. There have been other games when the Falcons hurt opponents running the ball. This is an offense that can dictate terms to opponents.

“Sky is the limit,” McCloud said. “I think every game, it’s showing something different. Run the ball, throw the ball ... We showed flashes of everything today. This team is jelling together well, executing and we just keep getting better.”

The defense is further behind, but that group had its moments against the Cowboys. The Falcons didn’t force a turnover but stopped Dallas 10 times on 13 third downs and four times on five fourth downs. They sacked Prescott three times and recorded eight quarterback hits on 49 drop backs.

When the Cowboys had to start passing to keep up, the Falcons’ defense covered well on the back end and got after the quarterback. That was the formula the 2016 Falcons used to win the NFC. These Falcons aren’t as good as those Falcons. But they are winning and, as Morris said, hungry for more.

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