Polamalu: QBs’ biggest enemy
Unique mix of brains, brawn and instincts led to countless impact plays
The foremost job of any quarterback about to play against the Steelers defense for most of this century was simple on a game plan, near impossible on the football field.
“You better find 43,” former Steelers coach Bill Cowher said Friday. “All the great ones — Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, all of them — when they were scouting our defense, they knew they had to find 43. He could turn a game around in a heartbeat with an impact play.
“To me, there’s no greater compliment when quarterbacks talk about a defense: Find 43.”
Troy Polamalu made so many of those impact plays in his 12 seasons wearing No. 43 at safety for the Steelers that those who shared the same team uniform or coached him lost count, just as opposing quarterbacks lost track of him in the Steelers defense. He lined up here, there, everywhere and seemed to wind up always around the football.
“Quarterbacks would have a hard time figuring out what defense we were in watching Troy,” said Dick LeBeau, the Steelers defensive coordinator for Polamalu’s whole career except his rookie season in 2003. “So, I think they stopped watching him, really.’’
And then, without hesitation, LeBeau offered this Friday from his new perch as the Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator:
“Troy’s the best. He’s the best I ever saw. I’ve seen a lot and had the honor of coaching a lot of great safeties. He’s the best.”
Some of those safeties LeBeau
saw over the course of his 56year career as an NFL player and coach have joined him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“In five years,” LeBeau said, “Troy will be there.”
Coaches and teammates marveled at the many seemingly super-human defensive plays Polamalu made.
“He almost every game would do something that would make you say ‘Wow,’ you know?’” LeBeau said. “That’s why he was everybody’s favorite player.”
He was the Michael Jordan of the Steelers defense to the point that when things looked shaky or bleak, they would look for another Troy miracle.
“He was the X-factor,” former Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward said after learning of Polamalu’s retirement. “Offensively, you’re sitting on the sideline and saying to yourself, ‘Come on, Troy, make a play.’ He had a knack for being around the football, for whatever reason.”
Cowher, Ward and LeBeau cited one of the most important plays in Steelers history, Polamalu’s interception return for a 40-yard touchdown against Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco with just over four minutes left in the 2008 AFC championship that sealed a trip to the Super Bowl.
”They kind of changed the momentum in their favor, stopped us and got the ball,” LeBeau said, remembering that game at Heinz Field as the Steelers clung to a tenuous two-point lead. “It was late in the fourth; if we didn’t stop them on that drive, they would have been in position to win.
“He made a great interception and returned it for a touchdown. And we won the Super Bowl. I’ll always remember that.”
LeBeau and Cowher, Polamalu’s head coach for his first four seasons with the Steelers, showed such faith in Polamalu to allow him to jump all over the field and freelance, trusting that he would be in the right spot at the right time.
“Did he take chances? Yeah.” Cowher recalled. “Was he right 90 percent of the time? Yes.”
Cowher brought up one Polamalu play that confounded him and LeBeau at the time. LeBeau called a cover-2 defense against the Cincinnati Bengals and their quarterback, Carson Palmer, who had roomed with Polamalu at Southern California. In that defense, both safeties play a deep zone, each taking half the field.
“All of a sudden Troy moves down into the box,” Cowher said. He believed Polamalu was merely disguising what he was supposed to do.
“The ball is snapped,” Cowher recalled, “and he never gets out of the box! We’re screaming ‘Get back, get back!’ He’s waving his hand — ‘shut up, shut up.’
“Palmer runs a play-action and throws to the fullback in the flat and Troy is there to cover it” and make the tackle.
The defense ran off the field. and Cowher approached Polamalu.
“Troy, that was cover-2!” Cowher said.
“I know,” Polamalu replied.
Cowher: “What were you doing?”
Polamalu: “I know Carson and, if I’m in the box, he wouldn’t think we were in cover-2.”
Polamalu explained that he told cornerback Ike Taylor to drop back and take his place at safety at the snap, and he would cover the flat.
Cowher: “OK, but you have to tell us.” Polamalu: “I’m sorry.” Rarely were the Steelers sorry when Polamalu acted on his instinct in such ways.
“I think, without a doubt, that was an innate skill of his,” LeBeau said. “He had the mind to be cohesive with the other calls and meld them one into the other. We tried to design things around him that gave him the freedom to do that without hurting the defense.”
Said Cowher, “This guy was such a student of the game, he studied the game, had great instincts. He played on instincts, on anticipation. He had a way of timing things that was amazing — blitzes coming off the corner, coming up the middle, timing it and making an unbelievable play. His ability to time things and his explosion are what separated him.
“Everyone talked about him and Ed Reed, and Ed Reed had instincts with the ball in the air that made him special. Troy had a football skill. He could diagnose a play inside the box and know where a play was going.
“He intercepted a pass against Carson Palmer once. He was supposed to be on one side of the field and came all the way across to the other and made the interception. His ability to anticipate plays, to me, is why he will be one of the all-time great safeties who ever played the game.”