Troy Polamalu Eager to Erase Disappointing 2009

With his signature black locks neatly tied back and his soft-spoken responses to questions, Troy Polamalu presented a more subdued persona than one might expect.

But it's just fine with Polamalu, Pittsburgh's hard-hitting All-Pro safety, if the Steelers stay quietly under the radar for the time being.

"We're getting a lot of attention away from football, but as far as proper football attention, people don't expect us to do anything," said Polamalu, making an appearance at William and Mary's Colonial All-Pro football camp Tuesday. "If you look at the past, that's kind of where we've prevailed, as the underdog. We've come back from Super Bowl years where we were supposed to be another Super Bowl squad, and we've just blown it."

That's what happened in 2009, when the Steelers followed their world championship the previous season by going 9-7 and failing to make the playoffs. Polamalu wasn't on the field for much of the season after first spraining the medial collateral ligament in his left knee and then straining the posterior collateral ligament in the same knee, injuries that limited him to playing in parts of only five games.

"I get paid to be a football player, not a cheerleader or a coach. I don't belong on the sideline," Polamalu said. "As a football player, you take a lot of things for granted – each snap, camaraderie in team meeting rooms – and whenever you can't be a part of that, it's disappointing."

As Polamalu rehabbed his knee without surgery, the Steelers' troubles continued in the off-season. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual misconduct when a 20-year-old woman claimed that Roethlisberger assaulted her at a Georgia nightclub on March 5.

Roethlisberger was not charged in that incident, but still faces a lawsuit filed by a woman who says he raped her in 2008 at a Lake Tahoe hotel and casino.

Polamalu said Roethlisberger's troubles haven't been a distraction and that he's not disappointed in the quarterback, but "I guess it would be similar to dealing with a brother in a way that, you know, you're like, 'Ah, man, come on. You're better than that,' " Polamalu said. " … Obviously he's been a really big focal point of our team in the last few years, but the thing that the Steelers have built their tradition on is depth and team. Our team is not like a New England Patriots or an Indianapolis Colts in the sense that you can take Peyton Manning or Tom Brady away from the team and they would be a completely different team. We've won games without Ben, but I don't think we can win a championship without him – or it would be really tough to win a championship without Ben.

"But we'll see. He's a great friend to all of us on the team, and we're all dealing with it together."

Polamalu has no problem pinpointing what went wrong on the field for Pittsburgh in 2009.

"We didn't play Steeler football," he said. "People understand when they play the Steelers that we're going to run the ball, we're going to control the clock, we're going to play good defense and solid special teams. If one of those aspects of our game lacks, then we lose the game. That's how important Steeler football is. Whereas if you take a team like Indianapolis, they can have a bad special-teams game, they can have a bad defensive game, but their offense can always make up for it. In Pittsburgh, it's always been a team concept, and we went away from that last year."

If the Steelers can get back on track next season, then a little more attention would suit Polamalu just fine.

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