This is Part 3 of a five-part series on Steelers legend Troy Polamalu, in advance of his scheduled Aug. 8 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Today: PITTSBURGH? ... REALLY?
Troy Polamalu hadn't given a lot of thought to playing in the NFL. He was too busy concentrating on being a star football player at USC while balancing being a student to think that far ahead in his life.
But given his play on the field, the NFL was going to come knocking.
Polamalu played football because he loved it. Playing in the NFL? He didn't give it a lot of thought.
"After my junior year, people asked me, ‘Are you going to enter the NFL Draft?’" Polamalu told me. "At that time, I honestly thought it was ridiculous that they thought I could play in the NFL. To me, I was immature in my mind. I thought my body was immature. I thought, ‘Those guys are grown men with families.’ In my mind, I’m just a kid. I’m a kid in my mind. I’m a kid in my body. I never considered that.
"After my senior year, I never thought about it throughout the process. I never felt the pressure. It goes back to high school. I never cared about going into high school. Going into my senior year in high school, I never worried, ‘I’ve got to do good so I can go to college.’ It was all just part of the process. In the NFL, it was the same way. So after my senior year, I was just training for the combine. It really just evolved naturally for me. I didn’t feel any pressure to feel I had to go to the next level."
But the next level beckoned just like college had before. And Polamalu answered the bell.
The Steelers were coming off a disappointing 10-5-1 season in 2003 that saw them ousted from the playoffs in dramatic fashion in Tennessee the previous January.
That season had showed some flaws in the Steelers' 3-4 zone blitz defense that had been dominant in 2001, but was under attack in that 2002 season as the NFL began shifting to more of a passing league.
The team had added nose tackle Casey Hampton and inside linebacker Kendrell Bell in the first two rounds of the 2001 NFL Draft. They were practically impossible to run the ball against. It led to a 13-3 season that ended abruptly in the AFC Championship Game, where the Steelers were upset by the Patriots.
In 2002, teams just quit trying to run the ball against the Steelers.
Tom Brady dropped back to pass 25 consecutive times against the Steelers in a season-opening loss at New England that year. Then, the following week, the Raiders had Rich Gannon drop back to pass 69 times in a 30-17 win over the Steelers at Heinz Field.
The safeties, Brent Alexander, Lee Flowers and Mike Logan were OK. But none of them were playmakers. And the team was using its safeties to cover receivers in three-receiver sets on early downs, not going to a nickel or dime defense to combat it. So teams threw against the Steelers ... a lot.
The Steelers were intent on fixing that heading into 2003. Thing is, because of their finish, the Steelers were picking at the bottom of the first round, 27th overall. The top safety in the draft was Polamalu, who was capable of lining up in coverage or helping out against the run.
To get him, the Steelers would have to do something they hadn't done in years: Move up in the draft. That's where things got interesting.
Head coach Bill Cowher, who had come to the Steelers in 1992 after a successful stint as defensive coordinator with the Chiefs, called up his old boss, Carl Peterson and convinced Kansas City's GM that the Steelers weren't interested in Penn State running back Larry Johnson, a player the team was being linked with regularly in pre-draft talk.
“Carl thought we were taking Larry Johnson. That’s who he wanted," Cowher said. "He wanted to know we weren’t picking an offensive player. And I told him, ‘I can guarantee you we aren’t taking an offensive player.’ He felt good that no one would take Larry after us. It kind of worked out."
Except Polamalu — who had spent his entire life on the West Coast, first in Los Angeles, then in Oregon before heading back to college in L.A. again — wasn't too excited about the idea of moving east.
"I called Troy when we were ready to make the pick and told him we're going to take him," Cowher recalled. "He was like, 'Pittsburgh ... really?'"
Polamalu had met his future wife, Theodora, at USC. She was the sister of one of his college teammates, Alex Holmes. And he wasn't keen on moving all the way across the country.
Plus ... "I wanted to go somewhere warm," he joked.
So much for that. The only warmth he would receive in Pittsburgh was from the fans and the heat he brought to opposing teams on the field. But it didn't happen at first.
As much as he relied on his God-given talent, Polamalu also was a very cerebral player. He wanted to understand not only his job and what he was supposed to do, but the entire defense. The only thing memorable about his first year was the flowing mane that stuck out of the back of his helmet.
"Troy was just a little bit different," cornerback Ike Taylor, a fourth-round draft pick by the Steelers that season, told me. "His first year, it was like, 'Who is this guy? Where did he come from? He doesn't look like us.'
"In his second year, Troy spent a lot of time with (defensive backs coach) Ray Horton watching film. They broke down the weaknesses of our defense, and once you did that, you understood where the quarterback wanted to go with the ball. He understood what everyone on the field, from the defensive linemen back to the linebackers, what (defensive coordinator Dick) LeBeau wanted to do. Once he understood those weaknesses, we saw what happened. He just took off."
Polamalu went from a part-time player who had 48 tackles and failed to record an interception in his rookie season to one who had 97 tackles and five interceptions in his second, earning the first of what would be eight trips to the Pro Bowl.
"I think they started learning each other," his uncle, Kennedy Polamalu, now running backs coach for the Vikings, told me. "You know how much he studied. They started giving him indicators and that allowed him to play fast. He got to learn from the safety in front of him, Mike Logan. He got a chance to learn. The NFL is different from college. There was a point after the season, I told him to stay there in Pittsburgh, and he went to the Rooneys and they told him if they were him, they’d be in Hawaii.
"It’s one of those things, he grew up and matured. I don’t think it’s anything in terms of anything [more than], yeah, everybody wants to do good. It wasn’t effort. It was just him maturing. His second year, he really shined and grew."
But the biggest change between those first and second seasons was LeBeau coming back to the Steelers. The architect of the zone blitz scheme, LeBeau had been an original member of Cowher's staff. But he left following the 1996 season to return home to Cincinnati.
LeBeau spent four seasons as defensive coordinator for the Bengals, then was head coach from 2000 through 2002. He spent the 2003 season in Buffalo as assistant head coach.
But Cowher wanted to bring the best out in Polamalu. And he knew just the man to do it.
"I think what really changed everything was Dick LeBeau," Kennedy Polamalu told me.
Polamalu began his trademark disguising of plays, lining up all over the field throughout a game, then quickly moving to where he was supposed to be at the snap of the ball.
"You could let Troy be Troy," Taylor said. "You didn't want to know where Troy was going to be sometimes because it was so scary. He wouldn't tell you because he didn't want to scare you. But Troy did a good job watching tape. Every offensive coordinator has tendencies, these five plays they like to do on first, second and third down. Troy took it to another level."
It helped the Steelers win two Super Bowls and reach another, with Polamalu adding six All-Pro honors and a 2010 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award to his Pro Bowl trips.
Later this summer, he'll add Pro Football Hall of Fame member to his resume.
Tomorrow, Part 4: LIFE AFTER FOOTBALL
Part 1: Humble beginnings
Part 2: LA to Tenmile
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