Battle for final receiver spot too close to call

The battle for the sixth and presumably final wide receiver spot took some twists and turns Monday night.

Brandon Rideau jumped ahead of Mike Hass with 3 catches for 43 yards in the first preseason game, and he caught 2 more for 44 yards Monday night.

But he also had a drop and then sprained his right ankle, leaving him with a noticeable limp and his foot in a protective walking boot.

Hass caught his first 2 passes of the preseason for 48 yards and recovered a fumble on a Colts kickoff return.

"I didn't really think I necessarily needed to come out here and catch balls," Hass said. "Last game I just didn't get balls thrown my way. I got 2 thrown my way this time, and I made the plays on both of them. All I can do is catch the ball when it's thrown to me."

Hass caught almost everything thrown in his vicinity during training camp, but he admits that isn't enough to make the roster.

"If you make plays in training camp and don't come out and make plays in the game, they say, 'Why not?' " he said. "I wanted to obviously do that. I just went out there and ran the plays they called and the ball was thrown to me. Catch it and see what I can do after that."

Hass didn't claim much credit for recovering the fumble forced by Ricky Manning Jr.

"It was kind of right there for me so I just jumped on it," he said. "But it's good to do that, obviously, as well."

Rideau was disappointed with his follow-up performance.

"To come out here and have a good game one week, and the next week have a game that you don't feel is as good, it's tough," he said.

Practice makes perfect: Offensive coordinator Ron Turner said there isn't much more that can be done to perfect the center-quarterback exchange between Olin Kreutz and Rex Grossman.

"We can't do it more than we do it," Turner said. "We do it every day before practice and obviously every day during practice. We just have to keep working on it. It's something we can and will clean up."

Making amends: Rookie safety Kevin Payne redeemed himself Monday night with a third-quarter interception of Colts backup quarterback Jim Sorgi.

"I missed one last week that I should have had," the fifth-round pick from Louisiana-Monroe said. "I kind of made up for it this week. I got a good read on the quarterback, and the (cornerback) got a good jam on the receiver at the line of scrimmage, so that allowed me to make a pretty good break."