Nothing about Troy Polamalu is normal. In a Super Bowl full of abnormal athletes, he just might stick out like his hair, uncut since 2000. It’s so long it covers his name on the back of his Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, but the Seattle Seahawks know exactly who he is.
So does the entire NFL. By Sunday night, he could be a household name in places farther away than Samoa, where his parents were born. In Pittsburgh, they already are singing a song written for him.
“I play football with a passion,” Polamalu said Tuesday without a hint of passion in his quiet voice.
Called the “Tasmanian Devil” by teammates, Polamalu is too polite and thoughtful for that nickname or playing style.
“I don’t think I have a split personality,” he said. “I’m the same person at home, passionate about everything I do, whether it’s reading the Bible or hanging out with my wife.”
Polamalu didn’t come out of nowhere this season. He did that when he was 8 and moved away from his divorced mother near Los Angeles to live in a better environment with an aunt and uncle in Oregon. As a strong safety, he was a good enough to make the Pro Bowl in 2004 and this year. Yet during the Steelers’ current three-game playoff streak, Polamalu has taken his game on the road to levels seldom witnessed.
Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck still can’t get over Polamalu blowing up a screen pass against Denver in the AFC title game after a block failed to knock him off his feet.
“He had another incredible play against Detroit on a screen,” Hasselbeck said. “I’ve watched all their games and he’s great every game.”
Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau made 62 interceptions as a cornerback and has played and coached in the NFL for 47 straight years. He coached safeties David Fulcher in Cincinnati and Carnell Lake in Pittsburgh and said Tuesday Polamalu does things he never has seen.
“In his unique way, I think he creates not any better than those guys but in a different manner,” LeBeau said.
How so?
“He runs real, real fast. And he’s very instinctive. He just can diagnose and get to the right spot,” LeBeau said.
Denver defensive end Trevor Pryce was amazed even before the AFC title game. He told the Denver Post: “This kid Polamalu, and you can print this, he’s the best I’ve ever seen.”
So people know who Polamalu is; the problem is knowing where he is.
“Troy Polamalu is a freak and they’ll line him up at safety, at linebacker or up on the line,” Cleveland quarterback Charlie Frye said. “You can’t get a read on where he’s coming from. You think you have it figured out on film and–boom–they’re coming at you from somewhere else.”
Seattle offensive coordinator Gil Haskell gives LeBeau credit for allowing Polamalu to do things normal safeties can’t, like fake a blitz so close to the line of scrimmage you think there’s no way he still can cover the deep middle.
“People normally don’t do that, where they can have you running from the line of scrimmage all the way back to the middle of the field when you have a guy like [Seattle receiver] Darrell Jackson, who could run a post,” Haskell said. “But they think this guy can make a play on him.”
Last season, New England quarterback Tom Brady beat Polamalu deep in the AFC title game.
“At times, he’s out of position because he just takes chances and goes after you,” Haskell said.
That’s because the Steelers’ defense has enough good players to allow for risk. It starts up front with nose tackle Casey Hampton, who happened to get his teammates’ vote for most valuable defensive player. Six defensive players and six offensive players got MVP votes.
Hampton is such a force in the middle of the 3-4 front that Seattle center Robbie Tobeck said Tuesday he wanted Denver to win the AFC.
“You don’t cheer for one team or the other, but I kind of wanted to play Denver because of Casey Hampton,” Tobeck said. “We played against him a couple of years ago and I have a lot of respect for him.”
Said Haskell: “That’s a full team and they’re able because of [Polamalu’s] ability to move him around and do more with him than they normally would with another safety.”
As instinctive as Polamalu is, he also studies more film than anyone else on the defense, coach Bill Cowher said. Last off-season, he compiled a three-hour DVD of highlights from Denver safety John Lynch, Dallas safety Roy Williams, Philadelphia safeties Brian Dawkins and Michael Lewis, New England safety Rodney Harrison, Baltimore safety Ed Reed and Washington safety Sean Taylor.
At last year’s Pro Bowl, Lynch told the Rocky Mountain News: “Early in the week, [Polamalu] came up to me and said, `Any way I could pick your brain and if you don’t mind spend some time with you?’ I respect that out of young players. He makes their defense go.”
At USC, Polamalu and Seattle rookie linebacker Lofa Tatupu, also of Samoan heritage, overlapped when Tatupu redshirted, but the two don’t know each other well. Samoa will have a say in which team wins Sunday.
“I think there’s a lot of Samoans in professional football because it’s closely related to a family atmosphere,” Polamalu said.
In Polamalu’s case, that became especially important.
“I didn’t grow up around my father. I didn’t really grow up around my mother either. I was kind of raised by a community of people,” he said.
One of Polamalu’s uncles, Kennedy Pola, is running backs coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Spiritually speaking, my father is in heaven and that is who I look to for all my answers and that’s why my faith is very strong and why my passion is strong,” Polamalu said.
He said he considers football “a very spiritual sport, especially for the challenges a man faces within the game of football–the fear of failure, the fear of gaining too big of an ego, of making a mistake and everybody criticizing you.
“The greatest thing for me football-wise is it’s a test of will. It’s not exactly playing the game against the opponent. It’s playing the game within yourself, the fears of making a mistake, the fears of getting injured. When you overcome those obstacles within the game, that’s when you become a better man.”
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dpierson@tribune.com
