Colts’ Freeney unsure of going

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

MIAMI — Next time, Dwight Freeney says, he might have to take the 15 yards.

Hitting Mark Sanchez instead of leaping to avoid the Jets’ quarterback might have cost Freeney and the Colts a 15-yard roughing-the-passer penalty. It probably would have given Sanchez a headache, too, but Freeney might have avoided his right ankle injury that’s the most talked-about body part this week leading up to Super Bowl XLIV.

Freeney said Tuesday that the third-degree sprain of that ankle, which means a torn ligament, remains a day-to-day proposition. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to play in Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints, or if he will do something he’s never done before — take a painkilling shot — to help him participate.

One thing he knows is that the cause of the injury, which occurred in the fourth quarter of the AFC title win over the Jets, is something he’d kick himself over if it didn’t threaten to worsen the injury.

He had beaten tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson with an outside rush and was about to hit Sanchez, when the quarterback released an incompletion toward running back Thomas Jones.

Freeney leaped to avoid making contact and rolled the ankle as he landed on the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium.

So the man who had 131‚Ñ2 sacks in 2009 to give him 84 for his eight-year career may not be around to harass Drew Brees on Sunday.

“It’s dispiriting; it’s not like it happened in the first quarter or second quarter, something like that,” he said. “It happened with about two minutes left in the game, trying to avoid the quarterback. The game’s over, and all of a sudden it gets rolled.

“It’s funny how it happens with all the rules of avoiding the quarterback: Don’t do this, don’t do that.

“I remember I was about to hit him and then I was like, ’Hold up on him, I don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s a gray area.’ And because I avoided him, I ended messing myself up. Maybe next time I won’t.”

He says the chance of injury from holding up on a pass rush to not draw a flag happens a lot.

“Fifteen yards if you accidentally slap his helmet; it’s kind of ridiculous, but it happens,” he said.

“Seeing how much you protect the quarterback now, it’s like icing on the cake (for the offense) if you get hurt trying to avoid the quarterback,” said Robert Mathis, Freeney’s bookend pass-rush partner. “It sucks, but you have to take it for what it’s worth.”