Troy Polamalu On Steelers Super Bowl Loss: ‘This Is Not A Game To Us’

Super Bowl XLV is in the books. The Green Bay Packers are your Super Bowl winners defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-25, at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas on Sunday night. The game was memorable for a lot of reasons from Aaron Rodgers’ getting the Brett Favre monkey off his back to the Packers overcoming even more injuries to win.

One memory from the game -- and not a good one for Steelers fans -- was the lack of impact from S Troy Polamalu. Asked after the game about Polamalu’s lack of impact, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said, “He was on the field. They made plays.”

Polamalu told reporters after the game that this loss was the toughest of his life. “I don’t know, I had some opportunities to make plays, I was just off a step here or there.” Replays showed Polamalu went left and the Packers went right on one touchdown to Greg Jennings. He just didn’t seem to make any sort of impact which is unusual.

“Those penalties hurt us,” he said. “Big plays hurt us. A lot of things did.”

Then he said: “This is not a game to us. This is our lifestyle.” He called the loss a “humbling experience” and a “good spiritual lesson”.

The Packers ability to create turnovers was obviously a major impact on this game but their ability to take Polamalu out of the game can not be discounted. That’s one of the most impressive accomplishments from Mike McCarthy’s offense.