NEWS » faces that were so etched with pain has been the best leg

The problems that plague Andrew Luck are the same that hinder Carson Palmer and pretty much any other quarterback or team that was expected to light it up this year but hasnt.As much as an ailing receiver, hurting running back or bad play calling, a patchwork offensive line can carve into a teams efficiency, confidence and, ultimately, its win total.Indianapolis and Arizona were among the teams expected to reach the playoffs this season, but are now dealing with losing records in large part because of uncertainty in their offensive lines. They have given up the second and third-most sacks this season, respectively. Minnesota (11), Carolina (11) and Miami (12) lead the league in number of linemen used this season; only the Dolphins are playing well heading into December.Looking back to last year, I think we got through most of the year with the same guys, said Palmer, whose current line includes two players who werent starters when the season began and a third lineman playing out of position. This year, its been the exact opposite. Its been different guys, different spots, different weeks.Each team has 53 roster spots, and once coaches and GMs move beyond their main playmakers, they look for multi-faceted players who can back up in some positions and play special teams. Because offensive linemen arent common on special teams, the number of spots available for them are often limited -- usually seven or eight on a roster.Injuries are inevitable. That leads to juggling, shifting positions and adding new players. How well the new pieces fit into whats designed as a finely tuned machine, with centers shouting out play calls to the line much the way the quarterback does to the entire offense, can dictate whether injuries equal big trouble or a minor setback.It seems like its a broken record every year, said Colts coach Chuck Pagano, whose team has allowed 38 sacks so far -- one more than all of last season -- en route to a 5-6 mark. Luckily we have a bunch of guys that have some position flexibility and can play multiple spots, but it affects you.Aware of the beating their quarterback was enduring, the Colts used their first-round draft pick this year on a center, Ryan Kelly. He started the first 11 games, but injuries piled up around him. The Colts have used six different line combinations and one player, rookie Joe Haeg, has started at three different spots.It works the other way, too.The Titans started seven different tackles in 2014, en route to a 2-14 record, all of which put them in position to draft Marcus Mariota in 2015.But it was moves the Titans made last offseason that helped put Mariota in the position hes in today -- a half-game out of first place with the leagues third-best rushing attack and just 18 sacks allowed after giving up a league-high 54 last year.Tennessee signed free agent center Ben Jones, used the No. 8 pick on tackle Jack Conklin and traded receiver Dorial Green-Beckham to Philadelphia for tackle Dennis Kelly. None of these moves made headlines the way Mariotas selection did in 2015.But the Titans depth on the offensive line has made a difference.Getting (Kelly) with that trade was as big a trade as we had this year, coach Mike Mularkey said.Heading into Sundays game against Miami, Ravens coach John Harbaugh was asked about the Dolphins shuffled offensive line -- three starters have missed all or part of the last two games -- and immediately reflected on his own teams problems.We were ... cobbling together an offensive line and guys were playing out of position. Its very challenging, Harbaugh said. The really great offensive line coaches prepare for that.The Ravens started the same offensive line for the first three games of the season and went 3-0. Injuries set in, and Baltimore lost four straight -- part of a stretch of eight straight games in which they started a different line combination. They head into Sundays game having won three of four, as the idea of not knowing who theyre going to line up next to has become less jarring.Its definitely easier to have someone youve been playing with because you build chemistry over a period of time, said Ronnie Stanley, the Ravens first-round pick this season, who missed four games earlier this season with a foot injury.And yet, sometimes chemistry isnt all its cracked up to be. The Bengals have started the same offensive line all 11 weeks this season. But Cincinnati has given up 32 sacks -- fourth most in the league -- and is on pace for its worst rushing attack since 2010. Last week against Baltimore, four of Andy Daltons final eight passes were batted down at the line and Cincinnati fell to 3-7-1.---AP Sports Writers Michael Marot in Indianapolis, Steven Wine in Miami, Teresa Walker in Nashville, Bob Baum in Phoenix, Joe Kay in Cincinnati and David Ginsburg in Baltimore contributed to this report. Cheap Stitched NFL Jerseys . Thousands of Southern California fans enveloped the Trojans to celebrate an improbable win secured by an interim coach, an inconsistent kicker and a thin defence that wouldnt break. Cheap Alshon Jeffery Jersey .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. http://www.stitchednfljerseys.com/ .25 million option on reliever Jose Veras. Cheap Philadelphia Eagles Jerseys . Fellow centre Pavel Datsyuk remains out because of a concussion. Zetterberg has 11 goals and 19 assists for a team-high 30 points, and Datsyuk has a team-high 12 goals and 11 assists. Cheap Minnesota Vikings Jerseys . But now that hes in the NHL, the Calgary Flames centre showed big improvement in that department by scoring the winner in the eighth round of a 5-4 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. PARIS -- By blowing themselves up at Frances national stadium, suicide bombers created a link, indelibly marked in blood, between football and extremist terror -- things that, in normal circumstances, are worlds apart.Since that night last November, it has been impossible to think of one without the other at the vast arena where Frances national team was playing Germany and where, on Sunday night, it will play Portugal in the European Championship final.That unwanted bond now also gives football, the French team and the Stade de France important roles in the long healing process that France is still only part-way through.Regardless of whether Les Bleus win or lose against Cristiano Ronaldos team, hosting and celebrating the championship game will be one more step back toward the carefree life France is famous for, even if the reality was never as picture-postcard perfect.The scale of the horror on Nov. 13, the 130 dead and hundreds injured, rendered frivolities like football completely irrelevant. It is no exaggeration to say that it seemed as though France might never be happy again. The emotions were of the rawest kind: fear, fury, confusion, and survivors guilt.On the airwaves, first aiders spoke of battlefield wounds. The president spoke of war and declared a state of emergency -- still in force today. Soldiers, heavily armed and in camouflage gear that in any other context would have been comical because they stick out like sore thumbs against the limestone backdrop of urban Paris, patrolled the streets -- a sight both reassuring and worrying because it suggested that France had been permanently changed, which it was.Soldiers still patrol. Its frightening how quickly one gets used to having them around.For the second time in the year, kids came back from school with notes to inform their parents that theyd be observing a moment of silence, as they did after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in January.As flowers, candles and cards stacked up outside the Bataclan concert hall where casualties were most concentrated, people also went in ones, twos and small groups to the 80,000-seat stadium in Paris northern outskirts which, before three bombers targeted it, was associated most strongly with happy memories of Frances greatest sporting triumph, when Zinedine Zidane scored twice to down mighty Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final.The visitors wanted answers but got only more questions because there is no explaining the unexplainable. Some took photos of the flecks of bombers flesh on walls and tarmac before municipal cleaners power-hosed them down the sewers. The souvenir snappers motivations werent necessarily voyeuristic or macabre. They were merely mapping the new fault lines the attacks opened in Frances history and future.Foottball, of course, cannot wash away Frances trauma nor does it pretend to.dddddddddddd But it is true to say that, because it is a powerful positive collective experience, winning at football can have unique restorative powers for a society that has just shared a powerful collective but negative experience.Hosting the 24-nation Euro and Les Bleus advance through six games to the trophy match has put distance between then and now. Winning, especially a 2-0 semifinal victory against world champions Germany, restored a sensation of power and national pride for a country that in November seemed vulnerable and weak, one which despite its nuclear arsenal and permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council could be hurt so grievously by shadowy enemies both within and based far away in Islamic State-controlled territory.Perhaps best of all, and because football is a sport that so celebrates and encourages these things, the tournament and the teams success has opened the gates for mass French silliness; allowed them to be wacky, bonkers, cuckoo and to go bananas; to yelp, shriek, howl and yowl; to have beer for breakfast; to bounce up and down together so vigorously in the Metro that it seems carriages could jump their tracks; to walk around with stuffed cockerels on their heads, with faces painted red, white and blue and in body-hugging skin-tight suits that unfortunately leave nothing to the imagination.In short, football has again enabled the French to not give a damn, at least in 90-minute bursts. And that has been wondrous. Unbridled joy on French faces that were so etched with pain has been the best legacy of this four-week breath of much-needed fresh air, better than spectacular goals, shots, saves or any of the other on-pitch dramas.On Sunday, as I cannot help but do since November, I will walk to the stadium to report on the final thinking again about the chauffeur who was killed outside after dropping clients off for the exhibition match against Germany that France won 2-0, a victory no one celebrated. Although I would much rather not, I will probably puzzle for the umpteenth time about what the suicide bombers were thinking.But then the clouds will be blown away by the sight of French people making merry, something that in November seemed might never happen again. At least not soon, in such numbers and with such heart.Being brutally reminded of the vulnerability of life also changed it. But football has also helped ensure that life, even changed, does go on.---John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester ' ' '