The Indianapolis Colts are focusing more on having a successful post-season than the pursuit of an undefeated campaign, yet they still see Sunday’s game against the New York Jets as a measuring stick.
The offensively-minded Colts, who hold a 14-0 record and have locked up home field advantage in the playoffs, will only be playing for pride against the 7-7 Jets, who have the top-rated defense and are still fighting for the playoffs.
Colts head coach Jim Caldwell stressed in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that preserving an unblemished record over the last two regular season games was not as important as resting players who needed a break.
PHOTO: AFP
“That certainly hasn’t been a priority of ours,” he said about going undefeated. “It’s a great by-product of a great season, but certainly not one that we’re overly concerned with. There’s only one happy team at the end of the year and that team is the one that wins it all.”
Indianapolis, led by quarterback Peyton Manning, have the NFL’s highest-ranked passing attack and have scored 394 points. The Jets have yielded an NFL-low 221 points.
“It’s one of those games where you have an opportunity to see two really fine units going after one another,” Caldwell said. “It’s going to be fun.”
Pass-rushing defensive end Dwight Freeney said the Colts were not likely to have their starters in the whole game, with health issues deciding play time.
“Based on the situation and how you feel physically, that’s going to determine how much you play,” Freeney told reporters. “It’s very important those guys who need rest get that rest, and the guys who can play will play. Some guys may see four or five series, and some guys may see three or four quarters.”
Freeney expects full effort from whoever plays.
“You don’t want to lose a game. As a competitor, as an athlete, you want to go out every single game and win,” he said. “We’re going out there and playing hard every game, no matter who is out there.”
Caldwell was not specific about how he might juggle the lineup.
“We plan to attack it just like we do every week,” he said. “Prepare to go in, play hard no matter who’s in. The focus is on the ball game, adjusted in the flow of the game.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier