Mike Kilroy's Pittsburgh Steelers fan blog

I guess Troy Polamalu has a pretty good cell phone plan.

Why else would the Pittsburgh Steelers safety be chatting it up with, presumably, his BFF on the sideline during the Steelers’ rout of the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday?

Television cameras glimpsed Polamalu talking on a cell phone after his OMG moment when he crashed into Bengals running back/avid boater Cedric Benson. Apparently, Polamalu was F2T (that's "free to talk" for the text messaging illiterate, i.e., anyone over the age of 13) after taking the rest of the day off after his WKYD (wicked) hit.

I wonder who is in Polamalu’s circle? Who was he talking to? I have a few theories:

THE PRESIDENT. Taking a page out of the book of former Denver Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe, Polamalu was on the horn with Dubya. “Call the national guard. We are killing the Bengals.”

Continue reading "Are you in Troy Polamalu's circle?"

I guess we got the answer to the No. 1 question asked this week.

Will the Pittsburgh Steelers, namely wide receiver Hines Ward and safety Troy Polamalu, change their style of play because of the fines handed down by the NFL?

The answer: an emphatic, no.

In fact, Ward took it a step further.

He broke the jaw of Cincinnati Bengals rookie linebacker Keith Rivers with a hit that was probably felt all the way in Rivers’ hometown of Riverside, Calif.

Ward has always had a rep of being a hard-nosed player. A blocker with no peer, it seemed Ward was out to show the Bengals and the NFL that nothing – not even a lightening of the wallet by Roger Goodell – would stop him from playing the brand of football he has played for years.

Good for Ward – and good for the Steelers.

Continue reading "Hines Ward likes orange and black jawbreakers"

Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu believes football players wear those helmets and shoulder pads for a reason.

It’s to hit people. To hit people hard. To hit people like they did in the olden days when dudes like Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert and Joe Greene smashed the opposition with sadistic glee.

Greene wasn’t called “Nice Joe,” after all. He wasn’t called “Tender Joe.” He was called “Mean Joe” for a reason. He was, well, mean on the football field.

Polamalu longs for those olden days, when the NFL was the National Football League, not the Namby-Pamby Flag Football League.

Polamalu lashed out at the NFL for levying fines against his teammates for seemingly innocuous hits.

“It’s becoming more and more flag football, two-hand touch,” Polamalu told the local Pittsburgh media. “We’ve really lost the essence of what real American football is about. They’re not really concerned about safety, because people have been doing this for … quite a few decades.”

Continue reading "Polamalu delivers forearm shiver to NFL"