Just about all of my friends know, my favorite part of any football game is defense and beyond that, if I played, I would be a safety (or mybe a corner or an LB). That said, I love Troy Polamalu. He’s a great safety and part of a great defense.Â
Just about once a week I get an email or a comment on my FB profile, where I have pictures of me sporting my #43 Steelers jersey, about how Ed Reed is by far the best safety out there. You won’t get an argument from me that he’s good. He’s very good. The argument comes when people say Troy Polamalu isn’t at the same level as Ed Reed.
I agree with the comment below, taken from James Walker’s Voice of the People on ESPN BlogNetwork
Nathan from Pittsburgh writes: I’m tired of people saying Ed Reed is best defensive player. Polamalu had 73 tackles to Ed Reed 41. Polamalu 19 assist to Ed Reed 7. Ed Reed 9 INT’s to Polamalu 7. Polamalu is the better of the too. Thank You
First – they are two completely different players. Ed’s strength in picking off QBs. He plays deep all the time – rarely do you see him at the line of scrimmage making a tackle. Troy, on the other hand is going in for that tackle. How many times have we seen him actually jump OVER the line of scrimmage to try to get to either the QB or the runner? And oh, yeah, he’s not that far behind Ed Reed in interceptions either.
I don’t even think there is a debate here. They are two great players. Troy is part of an overall #1 defense where there are no divas allowed.Â
Even Ed Reed picks Troy as his favorite NFL player.
I think the rivalry between the Ravens and the Steelers runs deep and luckily, when they play, we know we’re going have a very physical, defenseive game and it will be right down to the last seconds of the game. Yeah, we all want our team to win and our players to be revered as the best. Bottom line is I would rather see a great football game where two teams go at it hard.
It’s probable that we’ll get that game for the AFC championship after this weekend. Crossing my fingers, kind of.
