The Arizona Cardinals posted their best record in the NFL after a dour 12-6 road victory over the St Louis Rams on Thursday.
The Cardinals won a defensive contest in a game devoid of touchdowns to improve to 11-3 on the season, tying the franchise mark for wins in a season.
They consolidated their lead in the NFC West ahead of defending Super Bowl champions Seattle (9-4) and almost certainly secured at least a wild-card playoff spot with two regular season games left.
Photo: AFP
However, it was not all good news for Arizona, who lost quarterback Drew Stanton to a knee injury when he was sacked in the third quarter, replaced by third-string Ryan Lindley.
Arizona’s first-choice quarterback, Carson Palmer, had also suffered a season-ending knee injury last month.
Stanton completed 12-of-20 passes for 109 yards before departing and there was no immediate word on the seriousness of his injury.
Photo: USA Today
The loss eliminated the Rams (6-8) from playoff contention.
After holding their opponents scoreless the past two weeks, they again played strong defense, giving up just four field goals, but on this occasion their offense did not do enough.
“That’s one of the best wins I’ve ever been a part of,” Arizona coach Bruce Arians told reporters after the first NFL game without a touchdown in two years. “Our defense was outstanding. Everybody wanted to talk all that stuff about how great their [St Louis] defense is. I think they saw a good defense tonight. It was in red-and-white [Arizona colors]. I thought our defensive line whipped their offensive line pretty solid.”
“I’m very, very proud of our guys. It was a great team victory. I love it when nobody says you’ve got a chance to win. There’s an 11-3 team and a team that’s always 8-and-8. You figure it out,” he said.
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