So I don’t have this, I guess desire

Jason Garrett and Frank Reich understand the high stakes of Sunday’s game.If Dallas wins Peyton Manning Jersey , it clinches the NFC East. If Indianapolis wins, it stays in the hunt for the AFC’s final playoff spot and possibly even a division crown.The two coaches and their players will get one more precious late-season chance to see how they stack up against another postseason contender and what can be done to keep playing into January.“Most people call this the dash for cash,” Colts tight end Eric Ebron said. “So you just try to win.”Few teams have done more lately than the Colts (7-6) or Cowboys (8-5).Rather than folding after starting 1-5, Andrew Luck & Co. turned things around with six wins in seven games and tying Baltimore, Miami and Tennessee for the No. 6 seed in the AFC playoff chase.Luck’s comeback has happened during perhaps the best season of his career with 34 touchdown passes, second in the league and six short of his career high, a career-best completion rate of 67.7 percent and he is 241 yards away from the fourth 4,000-yard season of this career.This time, Luck also is working with an improved defense that has allowed 17.1 points over the past seven weeks and ranks among the league’s top third in sacks and negative plays.The combination has upped the ante for Colts’ opponents.“They attack you a lot of different ways,” Garrett said. “It’s aggressive, it’s attacking and it’s a balanced offense. You have to be ready for a lot of different things.”Dallas also made a dramatic midseason turn.After starting 3-5, the Cowboys made a deal for receiver Amari Cooper and everything suddenly changed.Running back Ezekiel Elliott has charged back into the NFL rushing lead and quarterback Dak Prescott started making more potent plays.Dallas’ defense has climbed to No. 4 in yards allowed and now people around town believe the Cowboys could win their first divisional-round game since the 1995 playoffs 鈥?if they make it.One thing is clear: Dallas is all-in.“It will be a great challenge. It’s going to take every person over there, but I think defenses like that challenge Darius Leonard Jersey ,” Reich said when asked about slowing down Elliott. “I know our defense will like that challenge. It’s not going to be easy, they are going to get some runs. If Zeke has 95 yards that might be considered a win.”TACKLING STARSWhile much of the focus this weekend will be on high-profile offensive stars such as Luck and Prescott, rookie linebackers Darius Leonard and Leighton Vander Esch will play big roles, too.The league’s official stats show Leonard leading the league with 135 tackles despite missing one game with an injury.Vander Esch has played well, too. The Cowboys credit him with 136 tackles, tied for the franchise’s rookie record, league stats show Vander Esch with 108 鈥?tied for No. 6 overall and second among rookies to Leonard.LINE DANCEWhile Colts starting center Ryan Kelly could return after missing three straight games with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, Cowboys right guard Zack Martin will miss a game for the first time in his career in what would’ve been his first trip to his hometown.Martin, a four-time Pro Bowler and 2014 All-Pro, sprained the MCL in his left knee during the preseason and left both games against defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia after aggravating the injury. He returned to the first Philadelphia game, but didn’t come back in last week’s victory and has been declared out for Sunday.Kelly, meanwhile, was limited in practice Wednesday. He said he hopes to play through the pain with a brace.Before he was injured Malik Hooker Jersey White , the Colts allowed one sack in six games. Indy has given up six sacks in the three games he missed.REJOINING THE YOUNGSTERS?Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee practiced this week for first time since leaving a game Nov. 5 against Tennessee with his second hamstring injury this season and he could be rejoining the linebacker rotation Sunday.If he does, the focus will be on how it works.Vander Esch and Lee play the same position and 23-year-old Jaylon Smith, a former Notre Dame star, also played well this season. The two youngsters have embraced playing big roles while Lee, a 2014 All-Pro choice, was on the mend.FANCY FEETEight Colts players will wear special cleats this weekend to promote various charities.Luck will wear shoes bearing Indianapolis’ renown Riley Hospital for Children, which he has worked with since being drafted No. 1 overall in 2012.Three players 鈥?Leonard, linebacker Anthony Walker and safety Mathias Farley 鈥?are using their cleats to draw attention to the Edwin Jackson 53 Foundation. Jackson was killed in a traffic accident in February. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Andrew Luck spent three offseasons fighting his way back from injuries. Now he can reap the reward.After returning to the field, making it back to the playoffs, regaining his Pro Bowl form and collecting The Associated Press NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award, a healthy Luck now intends to take a rare and well-deserved break from football.“I’ll be honest, I probably won’t throw for a while,” he said before cleaning out his locker. “There will be tweaks Womens Peyton Manning Jersey , there will be changes to what I do (this offseason) but all of it is geared to one, make me as happy as possible and two, set me up to improve as a quarterback and improve as a person.”How Luck will spend his downtime is unclear.Peyton Manning broke the monotony with hunting trips. Brett Favre worked on his ranch. Tom Brady won a Super Bowl after changing last year’s offseason routine to spend more time with his family and less on football. They all learned throwing more balls doesn’t necessarily make a better quarterback.Matt Hasselbeck, a three-time Pro Bowler who backed up Favre and Luck during his 17-year career, became a believer. So after hearing a story about Manning meeting a former U.S. president one offseason, Hasselbeck accepted an offer from assistant coach Clyde Christensen to spend time with a Navy admiral.“He talked to us in our quarterback meeting one day about protecting the football because we’d had some issues and he used this analogy of what they tell Top Gun pilots,” Hasselbeck said. “It was basically that you have this great plane you get to fly and it does not belong to you. It belongs to the government, it belongs to the people. Clyde said we should take the admiral up on spending some time with him. So I did that one offseason.“That’s an example of something that’s not necessarily X’s and O’s but it’s a form of leadership training or just working on you and if you’re working on you, you’re improving everything about you.”It was a message Hasselbeck relayed to Luck after joining the Colts in 2013. But it was a hard sell to a young workout warrior with the pressure and expectations of a No. 1 draft pick.While Luck enjoyed vacationing in Europe, where he spent part of his childhood reading books, following soccer and riding bikes, the desire to improve drove him to work out.In time, Hasselbeck’s message sank in.“When we were first teammates Womens Malik Hooker Jersey , I told him there are going to be some years that are fun and they’re easy and you’re healthy the whole year,” said Hasselbeck, who now works for ESPN. “There’s going to be other years when it’s miserable and you’re dealing with something the whole year and you’re in the training room all the time. You’re there early and you’re there late and you’re in pain and you’re on drugs.“That conversation came up when I was talking about how long I wanted to play. This year we were talking and Andrew said ‘I remember you saying it and it didn’t make sense then.’ He said now it totally makes sense.”Luck’s good year came with 16 starts for the first time since 2014, producing career highs in completions, attempts and completion percentage. He finished second to Patrick Mahomes in touchdown passes, helped the Colts end a three-year playoff drought and found a better balance between life and football.Still, taking a break won’t be easy.“I don’t think he’s really going to get away,” longtime left tackle Anthony Castonzo said. “I think it’s so cool he’s not going to have to recover from an injury or have to get healthy first. He’ll probably try to get away, but he’s like me — after a short time you’ve got to find a gym or somewhere to work out because otherwise you feel like garbage.”The difference is the 20-month gap between regular-season games following surgery on a partially torn labrum and three successive injury-plagued offseasons have changed Luck’s perspective.He never missed a chance to explain how much fun he had last season and acknowledged things felt different after a season-ending loss to Kansas City.“In past seasons, there has been a massive emotional letdown — like now I can try to be a good boyfriend or now I can try to do this and that,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem that way this year. One of my challenges for myself was to maybe not silo everything in my life so much but be able to exist as a happy human throughout a season, not just after the season. So I don’t have this, I guess desire Andrew Luck Jersey , to run away and hide for a couple weeks.”Instead, he threw for a week leading up to the Pro Bowl and attended the NFL’s honors banquet last week.Luck hasn’t said if he will work out again at Stanford, his alma mater, but acknowledged he’ll continue to work with Tom House, the former Major League Baseball pitcher who has helped him in the past. But the Colts remain convinced the best prescription for Luck is rest.“He’s got to be fired up right now to have a normal offseason,” coach Frank Reich said. “To get away and I know he’s Andrew — he’s still going to do his deal and be disciplined — but just relax. My encouragement to him would be, ‘You better do that, you better take advantage of it.'”