The Pittsburgh Steelers are out for revenge against the Baltimore Ravens in their AFC North Division clash tomorrow on a day packed with fascinating matchups in the NFL.
The regular season is at the halfway stage and as well as the pounding defenses in Pittsburgh, the Week 9 highlights include the AFC East clash between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets and the league’s only unbeaten team, the Green Bay Packers, at the San Diego Chargers.
However, it is the always-fierce rivalry between the Steelers (6-2) and the Ravens (5-2) that will provide compulsive viewing, with Pittsburgh looking to avenge their 35-7 loss in Baltimore in Week 1.
Photo: AFP
“This is one of those games as players that you really want to be part of,” Steelers receiver Hines Ward said.
“It seems like it always ends up being on prime time and for us, they whipped our tails the first time so we now have a chance to get some get-back and hopefully take control of the AFC North,” Ward added.
Both teams come into the game on the back of morale boosting victories, the Ravens overcame a 21-point deficit to defeat the Arizona Cardinals 30-27 in the biggest comeback in franchise history.
Photo: AFP
Pittsburgh boosted their credentials for the playoffs by defeating New England 25-17, with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger throwing for 365 yards and two touchdowns.
The Steelers lead the series by 18 wins to 13 and will hope that Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is as shaky as he was before the comeback against Arizona.
Defending Super Bowl champions Green Bay return from their bye-week looking to extend their franchise-record 16 straight wins.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers has guided the Packers to their best start since 1962 and he stands atop the NFL’s quarterback rankings with 20 touchdowns and unmatched completion percentage of 71.5 percent.
The game in San Diego, against a Chargers team who are returning from three games on the road, marks a first NFL start in California for Rodgers, who and was born in Chico, Northern California, played his college football for the University of California and now has his off-season residence in the south of the state.
“It’s always nice to come back to California. It will be nice to play in San Diego, you have got a great field, a nice fast track and it’ll be fun to see some friends and family,” he said.
The Jets (4-3) can make some headway in the AFC East if they can deal with the Bills (5-2), who are tied at the top of the division with the New England Patriots.
New York is also coming back fresh from a bye, but has won their past two outings while the Bills defeated Washington 23-0 in Buffalo’s annual game in Toronto.
“We know we have the opportunity right in front of us, trying to win our division and we’re running into it. We understand that and we will be ready,” Jets head coach Rex Ryan said.
“Our guys are fresh, but mentally we have to be focused and sharp and understand that it will be a physical game,” he said.
The New Orleans Saints, who suffered shock defeat to the St Louis Rams last week, have a tough test against divisional rivals Tampa.
Tampa beat the Saints 26-20 in Florida last month and New Orleans are desperate to improve on their 5-3 start to the season.
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