Mar 28, 2020 5 min read

If you ever wondered why Troy Polamalu was so beloved by his Steelers teammates on and off the field, well, wonder no more.

Former Steelers cornerback Bryant McFadden gave a good example why this week when speaking about Polamalu’s impending Hall of Fame induction.

McFadden struggled through his final season in Pittsburgh in 2011, tearing his hamstring in training camp then reinjuring it during the team’s opening game loss to the Ravens. When he was finally healthy again, the team had moved on and he was relegated to the bench.

For a player who had helped the Steelers win two Super Bowls and go to another as a key contributor, it was a bitter pill to swallow. But he went to work every day and didn’t complain.

At the end of that season, Polamalu sent him a handwritten, two-page Christmas letter telling McFadden how much he personally appreciated him and the struggle he went through.

It read, in part, “I am so grateful for our friendship and look forward to many more years of experience. I know you’re facing so much adversity, but in truthfulness, I envy you for this reason bro, everything that happens in our lives is for the benefit of our salvation, not for our personal prestige. Continue to persevere and you will have the greatest spiritual benefit.”

The letter hit home so hard for McFadden, who would be released by the Steelers that offseason and never play another down in the NFL that he kept it under lock and key until relating the story to me this week.

“The thing about Troy that was surprising to me was that I didn’t think he was paying attention to some of the things that were going on with me,” McFadden said. “I didn’t talk a lot about it because it was my personal problem. For him to be a teammate, an individual who had everything going for him, and see what I was going through and write this, it tells you what type of individual he is.”

COVID-19 virus or not, if the Pro Football Hall of Fame has its induction ceremony event in early August as planned, you can bet there will be dozens of former teammates of Polamalu in attendance because of things such as that letter as much as anything he did on the football field.

• We’re now four days into the start of the Major League Baseball schedule and the Pirates are still in first place.

I also can say without a doubt they won’t lose 100 games this season as some predicted.

It appears Major League Baseball will have a month-long extended Spring Training to get ready for what will be a shortened season.

A 100-game season would most certainly keep the Pirates from losing 100 games, not that they were going to lose that many to begin with.

• Waynesburg University right-handed pitcher Mason Miller, a Bethel Park graduate, has been getting a lot of looks from MLB teams and was reportedly touching 96 miles per hour with his fastball when the Yellow Jackets were in Florida before everything was shut down.

Miller struggled with undiagnosed diabetes in his first two seasons at Waynesburg and he couldn’t keep weight on his 6-5 frame, hovering around 150 pounds.

That’s not an issue now and Miller was off to a strong start, striking out 24 batters in 14 innings in Florida in what will now be his final collegiate season.

• It also appears that all offseason OTA programs will be canceled for the NFL. The draft will be held as scheduled April 23-25, but teams might not get a chance to get their new players on the football field until they hold their minicamps in early June.

That will hurt teams counting on rookies to step in and make an immediate impact. It will be especially tough on rookie quarterbacks, and there are expected to be at least three – LSU’s Joe Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Oregon’s Justin Herbert – among the draft’s first six picks.

It also will make things difficult on teams breaking in new quarterbacks. And in an offseason where we’ve seen some unprecedented quarterback movement, that could be significant.

• Are the Patriots really thinking of going into the 2020 season with Brian Hoyer or Jarret Stidham as their starting quarterback?

Because of the aforementioned issues with getting rookie quarterbacks ready to play, the Bengals might keep Andy Dalton around this season until Burrow is ready to go.

That would take him off the table for the Patriots. And they don’t appear to want to sign Jameis Winston or Cam Newton.

• No, the Steelers aren’t signing either one of those guys.

These Steelers-Winston connect-the-dots reports are laughable. People thought Ben Roethlisberger threw too many interceptions two years ago when he had a league-worse 16. Winston threw 30 last season and has averaged 18 interceptions per season in his five-year career.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghSports.com and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.