Polamalu owns Ed Reed in Big Game
January 18, 2009 by MadisonMadnuff
Troy Polamalu is the best safety in the league, while he and Ed Reed play different safety positions I find the disrespect that he gets awful. All these past four weeks, all you heard about was Ed Reed and his 9 interceptions on the season, most of which he got later in year. People forget that Polamalu was leading the league in interceptions prior to that with 7. Polamalu is a great cover safety though he may not be as good as Ed Reed is, he is not fair behind him. But one thing that Ed Reed can’t do is be a presence in all facets of defense. This AFC championship game showed that. Ed reed was almost none existent in the biggest game of his career, while Polamalu was a force to be reckoned with. Troy Polamalu can play the pass the run and blitz; when was the last time you saw Ed Reed in the box? Well I will tell you almost never. While Ed Reed is one of the greatest safeties ever Polamalu is just better because he can do more. He stopped Flacco on a fourth down conversion attempt and then again for a major loss on a designed quarterback run. Ed didn’t have any tackles in the back field “go fiqure” Polamalu is on completely different level than other safeties and tonight proved it.
Just imagine the two could have been teammates! The New York Jets blew it in 2002 when they chose Bryan Thomas from UAB instead of Ed Reed in the first round. A year later they took DeWayne Robertson from Kentucky ahead of Polamalu. As well Terrell Suggs was also available. Just imagine Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu side by side in they secondary. Guess we’ll have to wait till the Pro Bowl.
The New York Jets definitely blew it in quite a few drafts… In the draft of 2002, the Jets needed secondary help bad… Living in South Florida I am quite familiar with the Miami Hurricanes and I thought Philip Buchanon was going to fall into our laps. When the Raiders traded up to get him, the obvious choice to me was to take Ed Reed. Instead we draft Bryan Thomas out of UAB because he put up good numbers in the combine. Realize at the time too Shaun Ellis and John Abraham were the starting DEs so he was only gonna ride the bench anyway. What a dumb pick! Then the next year we had two first round picks so theoretically and with a little manuevering we could have had both Suggs and Polamalu. The Jets did some manuevering all right; they traded those 2 picks to move up and draft the “new Warren Sapp”. That worked out well-haha. If they had moved up one more pick from 4 to 3, we would have had Andre Johnson, the big receiver the Jets lacked since Keyshawn Johnson left. At least recently we got two steals in the fourth round with Kerry Rhodes one year and then Leon Washington the next year.. With Rex Ryan our new coach, hopefully we continue to pull out some late round steals and maybe he can get Vernon Gholston to do something besides collect his fat signing bonus and salary while he rides the bench. Another example of a “combine warrior” like Thomas. Draft on their skills in games rather than because they put up great numbers in the combine….