A defensive Michael Vick

Here is a long article, a few days old, on Polamalu from Jim Corbett of USA Today Sports Weekly. Seeing that I regard Mike Vick as Kordell Stewart in a dome, I'm not a fan of that comparison. But the article was good to read.

Interesting take here on the Super Bowl as a battle of Big Plays:

LeBeau changed his scheme the night before the game. Instead of blitzing Polamalu from everywhere, LeBeau mainly dropped Polamalu as an extra man into coverage, anti-cipating the Seahawks' maximum protection scheme and limiting Seattle's big plays to a minimum.

One of the three times he did blitz, Polamalu pressured quarterback Matt Hasselbeck into a critical, fourth-quarter interception that set up Antwaan Randle El's 43-yard pass off a reverse for the game-sealing touchdown to Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward.

And now Polamalu pretty much walks on water for his peers:

"It's hard to say Troy Polamalu is not the best defensive player in the game right now," Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks says. "I love Brian Urlacher and I understand the need for edge rushers. But as far as a guy having the most impact, I'm not sure there's anyone better than Troy Polamalu for his impact in the passing game, the running game and the blitz game."

With the draft coming up, I've been thinking about that 2003 draft. Polamalu was everyone's top safety, with Mike Doss a close second. If I remember right, a lot of mock drafts had him slipping -- because of injury concerns -- to the end of round 1. Then the Steelers traded lower picks to get him at #16. What was the injury concern? Concussions? Back problem? Maybe it wasn't injury concerns, but there was some knock on Polamalu that had him available on everyone's mock draft board for the Steelers. Then the Steelers had to go get him at #16, surprising a lot of people; was it because everyone knew the Steelers wanted him (and nobody else--remember the Dexter Jackson "snub")? And you know the rest of the league looks up to the Steelers when it's time to study the art of the draft. Did any other news about that trading up ever come out?

That was also the draft, right, where they "reached" on CB Ike Taylor?