NEW ORLEANS — For Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, the idea of going from bum to hero never has had more resonance.

After throwing three interceptions in the Bengals’ ugly 24-3 home loss to Cleveland last week, Dalton posted a quarterback rating of 2.0, a mark so abysmally low it couldn’t have been found with a microscope.

But in shredding the New Orleans Saints 27-10 Sunday at the normally hostile Superdome, Dalton posted a nearly perfect rating of 143.9, completing 16 of 22 passes for 220 yards and three touchdowns — two to tight end Jermaine Greshman and one to wide receiver A.J. Green.

“This league is so week to week,” Dalton said. “If you have a bad one, you can’t worry about it. You play bad one week, everybody wants to run you out. You play better, everybody loves you. Consistency is the big thing, and we’ve got to get it done the last half of the season.”

Dalton was not alone in lifting the Bengals (6-3-1) back atop the AFC North by a half-game over the Browns, Ravens and Steelers.

Rookie running back Jeremy Hill, who played collegiately at LSU, returned home to run for 152 yards on 27 carries, and Green, who has been slowed much of the season by a nagging toe injury, looked as though he was running smoothly in catching six passes for 127 yards.

The Bengals defense also shut down the high-octane Saints’ offense in the red zone, holding New Orleans to a 31-yard Shayne Graham field goal on the opening series and then smothering a fourth-and-goal play from the 1-yard line after the Saints (4-6) had marched 78 yards in 17 plays, only to come up empty.

“We obviously have to look at every little thing we’re doing,” said New Orleans coach Sean Payton.

The Bengals also converted nine of their first 11 third-down situations, including five that were third-and-8 or longer.

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said the key play in the game was provided by his defense. Cincinnati held a 7-3 lead, courtesy of Dalton’s 12-yard pass to Gresham on the Bengals’s first drive. But the Saints were poised to retake the lead early in the second quarter, marching 78 yards to a first-and-goal at the Cincinnati 3.

But on fourth down from the 1, quarterback Drew Brees threw a pass in the right flat for fullback Erik Lorig, who was quickly smothered by linebacker Rey Maualuga for a 1-yard loss.

“Sometimes it’s a guessing game,” Maualuga said. “(Safety) Shawn (Williams) came over late and took over my responsibility, and the fullback went into the flat, and we swapped responsibilities. We were just heads-up. Obviously, we did a great job and it gave a spark to our offense.”

“We wanted to give them the illusion that we were going to run one right up the middle and get everybody committed (to stopping the run),” Brees said. “We didn’t get it done. That was a huge turning point in the game. We needed that.”

What the Bengals said:

“We’re a good defense, despite where we’re ranked and what we’ve done. We’re a (darn) good defense. Sometimes people fall and make mistakes, and it shows on the stats, but we’ve still got more games and we have the chance to (improve) our defense and fix the things we need to fix. Someone said we were 31s in the league in run defense. I promise you, at the end of the year we’re not going to be 31st.” — Linebacker Rey Maualuga

What the Saints said:

“I’m still optimistic and confident. This was a tough one. It’s tough to have two losses in a row at home where we feel we should have an advantage. We can’t escape the reality of where we are. You are what your record says you are, and we are a 4-6 football team. But we think we are better than that.” — Quarterback Drew Brees

What we learned about the Bengals:

1. Cincinnati’s maligned run defense — ranked 31st and allowing 143.0 yards per game — held the much-improved Saints’ running game to 75 yards on 26 carries (2.9-yard average). Two factors were the return of LB Rey Maualuga after missing four games with a knee injury and the penetration of DT Domata Peko, who seemed to be in the Saints’ backfield for much of the game. “Obviously we had to get better in our run defense, and Rey was a big part of that,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis said. Added Maualuga: “I’m just excited to be back playing with my brothers.”

2. A.J. Green has been hobbled with a nagging toe injury, forcing him to miss three games. But playing against a banged-up Saints’ defense, Green had little resistance in catching six passes for 127 yards. His biggest catch was a 38-yarder down the right sidelines on third-and-19 in the fourth quarter. The Saints had just cut the Cincinnati lead to 20-10, but the Bengals went on to ice the game, 27-10, on Green’s 24-yard touchdown catch.

–LB Rey Maualuga had missed the last four games with a knee injury, but he made his presence felt immediately. Maualuga had only three tackles, but two of them were for losses. The most important was his tackle of fullback Erik Lorig for a 1-yard loss on a fourth-and-goal catch from the 1 early in the second quarter. “We knew they would try to make something quick happen from what we had seen, but they’ve never done that play to my side,” Maualuga said.

–WR A.J. Green was Andy Dalton’s favorite target (eight targets), and he finished with six catches for 127 yards and a 24-yard touchdown on which he tapped both feet just inside the boundary for the score. The play was upheld on instant replay review. He said the Bengals tried to rally behind Dalton this week after a rough outing against Cleveland. “You can’t put all the blame on the quarterback when things don’t go well. As wide receivers, we all have to run better routes — myself included. Last week I didn’t do a great job. … We have his back, no matter what.”

–RB Jeremy Hill had a wonderful homecoming to his native state of Louisiana, rushing for 152 yards on 27 carries (a 5.6-yard average), including the 62-yard burst just before halftime. “It was big for me coming back home,” Hill said. “It was a terrific feeling. Actually, it was my first time playing (in the Superdome). I watched tons of Saints games here, and I’ve watched LSU play here before. It was a big game for me to perform out there, and especially huge because of how we played last week. We knew we had a lot of doubters.”

What we learned about the Saints:

1. In the bottom-feeding NFC South, the Saints are still very much alive at 4-6, but no one is optimistic after they dropped their second straight game at home — the first time that’s happened since 2012 when Sean Payton was serving a one-year suspension. Four of the losses have come by three or fewer points, including two overtime losses. But the Saints were held to 10 points, matching the lowest total at home in the Payton era. “I’m obviously not doing a very good job if we keep swinging up and down like this,” Payton said. “You have to be able to shake those in the same way you have to do the wins.”

2. The Saints’ defense is a mess, especially on third down and giving up big plays. Cincinnati converted nine of its first 11 third-down plays, and five of those were of 8 yards or longer. Then there was the unforgivable mistake of giving up a 62-yard run to Jeremy Hill late in the first half when the Bengals were content to kill the clock and go into halftime with a 10-3 lead. Hill’s run set up a 42-yard Mike Nugent field goal with one second left. “Our third-down defense was awful,” Payton said. “Honestly, the long-yardage situations that we’ve been in — whether it’s 18 or 10 yards to go, we have to be better in that area — more consistent, at least. (Giving up the Hill run was) poor football. It’s situational football at the end of the half. It’s like stealing three points.”

–QB Drew Brees completed 33 of 41 passes for 255 yards and one touchdown, but his longest completion went for 17 yards. The Saints tried some deep balls, but the Bengals were playing deep coverages and forcing Brees to check down to shorter routes. “I don’t think we ran the ball as well as we’d hoped or planned,” Brees said. “It was nothing exotic (on defense). They’ve got a good front, and on third down they didn’t want us making any big plays down the field. The missed opportunities in the red zone changed the complexion of the game.”

–RB Mark Ingram was held to 67 yards on 23 carries (a 2.9-yard average) with a long gain of 13 yards after three straight 100-yard-plus games. “They did a good job coming off the ball,” Ingram said. “They had a good game plan. We are the sixth-ranked rushing offense, so obviously teams are going to come in trying to stop the run.”

–CB Brian Dixon, forced by injuries into playing a significant number of snaps, had a forgettable afternoon. Instead of falling on a fumble by TE Jermaine Gresham near the goal-line, which would have killed the drive, Dixon tried to scoop it up and wound up losing the handle, allowing Gresham a second chance to fall on the ball for a touchdown. Dixon also was victimized on A.J. Green’s 38-yard sideline catch on third-and-19 in the fourth quarter, leading to the touchdown that iced the game for Cincinnati.