Former Steelers cornerback Bryant McFadden was feeling nostalgic on the latest episode of his All Things Covered podcast. He was clearly excited to have his friend and former teammate on the show, Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu. McFadden, along with current Steeler and cousin Patrick Peterson took a walk down memory lane with the Steelers legend covering many topics and re-living notable memories.
One intriguing segment of the conversation centered around Polamalu’s penchant for being in the right place and the right time. Polamalu left a legacy and miles of highlight tape of his ability to anticipate what his opponents were going to do and putting himself in a position to make game-changing plays. McFadden went to far as to call Polamalu a football “savant,” noting that he didn’t even watch NFL football games until he played in the league.
Polamalu explained that his relationship with football was primarily centered around playing the game and practicing it. He expressed very little interest in the game outside the white lines.
“I’ll say about the game of football, I just love to play it,” Polamalu told McFadden and Peterson. “It was just about playing the game, the hitting, the tackling, the catching long, deep balls. Those are the sort of things that really excited me about the game. Not necessarily the festivities that surrounded the game.”
Polamalu went on to explain that he enjoyed studying the nuances his opponents and loved the concept of practicing with his teammates and coaches even more than playing in games. “I loved the practice. To me those are, those are the things that, that I actually enjoyed even more than the games, because we had no pressure… coaches, weren’t all tight, you know, you know, worrying about schematics and all these sort of things. So to me, like just getting out there and really enjoying practice, those are the things that I, that I really enjoyed about the game is just really playing the game of football.”
Clearly Polamalu’s love of practice and studying his opponents paid huge dividends on the field. McFadden went on to tell stories of how #43 had the uncanny ability to see things on the field that others didn’t. McFadden relayed a story from a game against the Atlanta Falcons in 2006 where Polamalu asked one simple question of McFadden and later turned it into a game-changing interception.
“(Polamalu) came to me and he was like, ‘B Mac, what did you get on this formation? Right? I said, ‘Uh, I think I got a curl or something like that,’ ” McFadden said. “He was like, ‘Okay, thank you.’ And you just walked off. You didn’t say nothing.”
Later in the game, it became clear why Polamalu had asked that question.
“In the fourth quarter, they came out in the same formation,” McFadden said. “They reversed the side. They reversed the strength. And lo and behold, we got the same routes from a different strength of the formation. Troy goes and (makes the interception). We all happy, win the ballgame.” McFadden added that Ike Taylor referred to Polamalu as “Baby Jesus” for his penchant of knowing what was coming and being in the right place to make a play.
Polamalu, in his humble nature, deflected the praise and credited the consistency of the Steelers’ defense over the years for his success.
“Here’s what I’ll say about, about our defense. One thing that I thought was an advantage for us was that we played the same defense, the exact same terminology, the exact same hand signals for 30 years,” Polamalu said. “When you play the defense enough, you know how it’s gonna be attacked. You know the weaknesses, you know, the strengths of the defenses.”
For someone who paid very little attention to football outside of the white lines, Polamalu’s ability to see things that others weren’t seeing and reacting with incredible speed and accuracy made him one of the best to ever do it and cemented his legacy as a Pittsburgh Steelers legend. Fans will forever re-tell stories of Polamalu doing the impossible and giving Steelers fans moments of joy that will live forever in Steelers lore.
