Former Pittsburgh Steelers safety, Troy Polamalu transcended the Steel City and earned fans all over the NFL thanks to his incredible gameplay. Polamalu seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to reading offenses. It was like he could intuit what they were calling before they called it and was known to make adjustments to the defense on the field based on what he saw. These adjustments were initially without the permission of his coaches until they realized that what he was doing was clearly working.
If you go back and watch highlights of Polamalu during his 12 years with the Steelers, you see him torpedoing down the field, hair flowing behind him, locked on to whoever had the ball. Polamalu was recently asked how he developed that incredible precognition of what the offense was going to do, and he credited a surprising source, the enemy.
Polamalu recently joined Will Compton and Taylor Lewan on their podcast, Bussin’ With The Boys, to discuss his incredible NFL career. They noted that Polamalu was born with some genetic gifts that gave him some innate talent, but they wanted to know how he learned to capitalize up on that talent. He told them it all started in college with someone who ended up becoming a member of the opposition, Ed Reed from the Baltimore Ravens.
Reed was one year ahead of Polamalu while the two were in college and the pros. An absolute terror, Reed made a career out of frightening offenses. He helped the Ravens win a Super Bowl and was selected to nine Pro Bowls. Polamalu shared that it was from watching film of Reed play that he began to hone his craft while at the University of Southern California (USC).
“Every year I watched five safeties and I would literally watch every one of their plays, and I would make a highlight tape and a low light tape of all of them. That’s what I did throughout my whole career and Ed was somebody I watched every single one of his plays. Ed is somebody who I admired,” said Polamalu.
It wasn’t just how Reed played the game that hooked Polamalu, it was also how he studied the game of football. He said it started at USC, but developed over time as he entered the NFL. He said he was just obsessive about watching film and Reed is also responsible for that.
“If anybody at this time, knows Ed Reed, saw how much he talked about how important film was and you didn’t listen to that? I mean he was talking in college about this stuff and I’m listening to him in college. These things became habits for me. You got to have a student mindset in the sport.”
It was Reed who really helped Polamalu understand that the process of becoming great in the NFL isn’t exactly a secret. There are lots of players that have walked in these shoes and what separates the good from the great, what makes someone a legend, is hard work and sacrifice.
Reed helped write the guidebook for greatness, and Polamulu credits Reed with his film study method. It was more than just watching your specific position, but rather studying the entire play so that you could best learn to blow up the opponent’s game. This is exactly how Polamalu began altering the defensive calls. He would use Reed’s method of breaking down the offense as a whole and then try it out on scout team.
“There’s absolutely a lot of things from Ed in particular that he would do that I’m like, ‘Oh man, I need to incorporate that.’ Funny thing is that’s what I would use scout team for, to be honest with you. I want to try some of the things I’ve seen some of the other safeties do.”
Polamalu said that non-football people don’t realize how hard it is to improve your game. As a player, you are given only a finite number of reps to be able to practice a given play. There is nothing that simulates running a play against actual players so you have to embrace those chances which is why he turned to the scout team.
He added that he got other players to come on board with that idea and often would have Ryan Clark or Chris Hope over there working on things he saw Reed do.
Steelers’ Troy Polamalu Also Became An Outlier
It wasn’t 100% only Reed who inspired Polamalu, it was a best-selling author who helped him change his mindset regarding practice. Author Malcolm Gladwell frequently writes about psychology and sociology and his book Outliers helped Polamalu shape his theory on practice. In the book, Gladwell examines people who have become incredibly successful at what they do. This is not necessarily about money, but rather a skill.
In particular, he talks about athletes and how they become exceptional at something. One example he uses is free throws. Gladwell said that science had shown you have to do something at least 10,000 times before you have it committed to your muscle memory.
This is why Polamalu decided to go run his new plays against the scout team, it was the only way he could get enough repetition to make these new plays successful, and it worked.
While Polamalu credits the incredible coaches he had, especially Dick LeBeau, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin, he also tips his hat to someone that would be the villain in the script of his career in Reed.
