Back-up quarterback Matt Hasselbeck climbed out of his sick bed and then led the Indianapolis Colts to a 27-20 road victory over the Houston Texans on Thursday.
Hasselbeck, battling a severe bacterial infection that had reportedly seen him on a IV drip until at least Tuesday, did not even know whether he could finish the game, let alone be so effective.
The 40-year-old connected with his offense for two touchdowns as the Colts improved to 3-2 this season and set a National Football League record with their 16th consecutive victory in the AFC South, a stretch of nearly three years.
Photo: AFP
“I honestly didn’t know if I could make it through,” an emotional Hasselbeck said in an on-field interview. “For some unknown reason I was able to finish. I can’t explain it. Its been an emotional day.”
Indianapolis wide receiver T.Y. Hilton said the team’s system allowed an old pro like Hasselbeck to slot into Andrew Luck’s quarterback position without the offense missing a beat.
“In this system it’s always next man up. Hasselbeck is a great back-up to have and he played like a true starter,” Hilton said.
Hasselbeck is not your average back-up quarterback.
A three-time Pro Bowler, he was a starter for most of his career with Green Bay, Seattle and Tennessee before taking the understudy role at Indianapolis in 2013.
In 2005 he was the NFC passing touchdowns leader and guided the Seahawks to the Super Bowl, where they fell to Pittsburgh.
Though he may have lost a bit of pace with age, his football brain is as sharp as ever.
“I used to take highlights of him and show young quarterbacks,” television analyst Phil Simms said. “That’s why he can still perform so well at 40, because he technically does so many things well and tonight, that was a masterful performance by him.”
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with