But here they are. Earlier this season, the Colts defeated the Texans, 27-20, in Houston in Week 5.
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What the Colts will not do, Luck said, is take unnecessary chances with an internal injury, despite their tenuous position in the AFC South division race (Sunday’s game will go a long way toward deciding the division title).
Paring the Indianapolis Colts’ fate to one specific factor oversimplifies things, but the truth is there at its core. Indianapolis closes out against Tennessee and Miami. If the Texans beat the Colts and then beat the Titans in Week 16, they will win the division according to the playoff machine. The Colts aren’t likely to beat Houston with Whitehurst at quarterback. But the second half was an entirely different story as the Jaguars scored 21 points in both the third and fourth quarters. Telvin Smith leads the Jaguars with 122 tackles, Aaron Colvin has four sacks and Davon House has 19 pass deflections. They’ve played well against teams like the Patriots, Panthers and Broncos but poorly against the Saints, Bills and Jaguars. The Jaguars will be keeping their fingers crossed while they await word on their rookie running back.
Now Atlanta comes to Jacksonville with a six-game losing streak after losing to Carolina, 38-0.
With fans chanting for “We want 50!”
Head coach Gus Bradley noted that he was 5-for-5 on extra points after the miss. That victory was made possible by former Clemson kicker Chandler Catanzaro, who made all three of his field goal attempts on Thursday, including a 47-yard kick with just one minute and 23 seconds remaining that ended up being the game-winning score.
Bradley said the approach this week won’t change. Good had a particularly rough day against Branch, who seemed to spend as much time in the pocket as Hasselbeck.
“We need to find that switch and hit it”, Mathis said. For the first time in Jacksonville Jaguars football history they scored a high of 51 points!
Bortles has thrown for 3,524 yards, with 30 touchdowns and 13 interceptions, in his second season. That gave the Jaguars 137 yards rushing from their two running backs. For Jacksonville, it was a couple of return touchdowns – a fumble and a punt – plus a unsafe Bortles pass to Allen Hurns that was almost intercepted but instead turned into an 80-yard touchdown. The finalists, featuring four players from each conference, are Justin Forsett, Matt Forte, Luke Kuechly, Matt Hasselbeck, Calvin Johnson, Jason McCourty, Joe Staley and Charles Woodson. While still being somewhat offensively challenged, the defense has stepped it up in recent weeks and elevated themselves into the top half of the league in points against at 13th with 22.4 allowed per game. Jalil Brown, re-signed by the Colts this week, started in Toler’s place and Jonathan Newsome stepped in for Walden.
Hasselbeck was unavailable to reporters following Sunday’s game and on Monday.
-SPECIAL TEAMS: B-plus. This would have been an A except for Jason Myers’ seventh missed extra point. And Myers had nine kickoffs for touchbacks.
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“My suggestion would be the risk of re-injuring it would be the same as before, ” said Joel Kory, a physician with St. Vincent Sports Medicine and Butler University’s team physician.
