Gene Collier: Safeties Hope, Polamalu Still Feel a Little Irritation

Steelers safety Troy Polamalu sacked Texans quarterback David Carr three times and knocked him down once last Sunday in Houston.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

You pretty much took it on faith that the Steelers' gifted safeties were somehow equal to the monstrous challenge of Tom Brady that day. As they came to January's AFC championship game, Troy Polamalu was a Pro Bowler and Chris Hope was everything short of that, and yet faith, Hope and Polamalu were not enough.

Deion Branch, injured and absent from the Steelers' 34-20 flogging of the Patriots three months earlier, caught two Brady passes deep down the middle in the first half, one for 60 yards and a touchdown, one for 45 yards that set up another for a 14-point lead equaling tickets to the Super Bowl.

"If you look back at it, it gets under your skin," Hope said as the Steelers prepared to face the Brady Bunch Dynasty again this afternoon. "It's irritating."

Though the AFC title game is the only Steelers loss in their past 18 games, its irritant essentially magnifies the dilemma of NFL safeties everywhere, specifically that too high a percentage of their inevitable mistakes become decisive. It's a bear carrying that around.

"Especially when you're the free safety," said Hope, a free safety. "Troy might make a mistake on a blitz or something, or someone up front might make a mistake, but when somebody pops free in the secondary, everybody looks to the free safety. There are so many great offensive players in the league. It's not too many times you're going to deal with a LaDainian Tomlinson breaking into the secondary when there are nine in the box, but when he does, who has to get him? The free safety. It's especially hard sometimes because our defense is so good that I might not even see Corey Dillon until the second quarter. But when he gets there, I've got to be ready."

What Hope and Polamalu weren't ready for the most recent time was in part the lethal 4.4-40 speed of Branch, but to a greater extent continuing genius of Brady. Branch blew past cornerback Deshea Townsend on that 60-yarder, but he was open deep as much because Brady looked Hope toward David Givens on the opposite side.

"It wasn't that they went after our safeties," Steelers coach Bill Cowher insisted this week. "The quarterback is very, very good at testing the discipline of your coverage. He can look you off with his eyes. If you void a zone he will find it. This guy does a lot of little things that he doesn't get enough credit for. He's as good as there is in the game without a doubt in my mind."

The secondary today is further buttressed by Mike Logan, a safety whose hamstring injury ended his season prematurely last year. The lessons of January are not lost on Logan.

"We made some mistakes and they took advantage," Logan said. "They have a smart coach and Tom Brady, you can just see how he reads the coverages like Peyton Manning. You can try to disguise the coverage, but he's got plenty of ways to avert that problem. You'll be moving around trying to confuse him, and he'll quick-count you. Now you're confused."

In the ramp-up to this rematch, the Steelers' defense has looked anything but confused. In eight ferocious quarters, Dick LeBeau's greatly respected unit already has generated five turnovers and 11 sacks. Polamalu has three of the sacks and one of the picks; Hope has 12 tackles and a fumble recovery. The safeties remain tremendous players, even if they've had to spend most of this week explaining the difference between now and Jan. 23, 2005.

"We didn't do enough right things in that game," said LeBeau, the defensive coordinator. "They made plays, and the quarterback is probably the most intelligent I've ever seen at throwing to the right spot. Now we have an opportunity to show that we're better than that."

They'll be a lot better by default if the offense merely fails to duplicate its January disappearing act -- the first half went interception, fumble, punt, field goal, punt, interception, punt. Brady is amazingly clever, but he can't fool anybody while he's standing on the sideline. Hope and Polamalu should not have had to carry this around with them all these months.

"Me and Troy didn't play our best," Hope said, "but we only gave up two plays. They're the plays, unfortunately, that everybody remembers. And that's what comes with playing in the secondary."

(Gene Collier can be reached at gcollier@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1283.)