By Mike Bires
October 7, 2017
(Frederick Breeden/Getty Images)
PITTSBURGH -- In all likelihood, Paul Posluszny will play his last game ever at Heinz Field on Sunday.
He will do so with many family members and some of his closest friends from Hopewell sitting among the 68,000 or so Steelers' fans.
Posluszny, the Jacksonville Jaguars' middle linebacker, is now in his 11th season in the National Football League. On Tuesday, he celebrates his 33rd birthday. He's the second-oldest player on the Jaguars' 53-man roster. He's in the last year of his contract.
So might be this be the final season in Posluszny's remarkable football career?
"That’s a great question," he said when asked how much longer he wants to play.
"I don't know. Right now, I take it a year at a time. I'll go through this season, see how we finish, see if I come out healthy and evaluate it after the season."
Whenever "Poz" decides to retire, he'll go down as one of the most accomplished football players to ever come out of Beaver County.
In 2002 as a running back and linebacker at Hopewell, he led the Vikings to WPIAL and state Class 3A championships.
He went on to Penn State, where he was a two-time All-American and a two-time winner of the Chuck Bednarik Award, which goes to the best defensive player in college football.
In the 2007 NFL Draft, he was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the second round with the 34th overall pick.
In that draft, Posluszny was the fifth linebacker selected. Only two of those first five linebackers are still in the league: "Poz" and Lawrence Timmons, the former Steeler now playing with the Miami Dolphins.
"I've been very fortunate to able to play up until this year," he said. "To have 11 years in the NFL, I feel very fortunate. I feel fortunate that I haven't had any significant injury that limited my ability to play for a long time.
"Obviously, when it comes to overall wins and losses, I haven’t had a ton of success. But that's not going to diminish my overall NFL experience. To play in the NFL this long has been a blessing, and I'm very thankful for that."
In his first 10 NFL seasons (four in Buffalo, six in Jacksonville), Poszluzny has never played in a playoff game. He's never played on a team that had a winning record. But he hopes that will change this year.
Jacksonville believes that it can contend for the AFC South Division title. Going into this week's games, the Jaguars are tied for first place with the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans at 2-2.
An upset win on Sunday over the Steelers (3-1) would go a long way in proving that the Jaguars have a team that can contend for a playoff berth.
"It's a great opportunity to play one of the best franchises in the NFL," said Posluszny. "Playing the Steelers in Pittsburgh will be a quite a challenge because of the talented team they have and the high level they're playing at right now."
During his NFL career, "Poz" has never beaten the Steelers. He's 0-4 , with two losses coming when he played in Buffalo and two more since he's been in Jacksonville.
He was 1-0 at Heinz Field as a high school player -- Hopewell beat Pine-Richland on the North Shore, 20-15, in the 2002 WPIAL championship. But he's 0-2 there as a pro.
"I have a ton of respect for the Steelers and their entire organization because of the success that they’ve had and the way they do things," Posluszny said. "So for me, it’s always fun and always an honor to go back there and play.”
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