{"id":342829,"date":"2025-09-05T05:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/342829\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T05:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:13:11","slug":"bill-cowher-reflects-on-the-fun-and-challenge-of-coaching-troy-polamalu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/342829\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Cowher Reflects On The Fun – And Challenge – Of Coaching Troy Polamalu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Players make the coach. Bill Cowher\u2019s success was certainly furthered by Troy Polamalu. Though the two were together for only the final few years of Cowher\u2019s coaching career, Cowher helped mold a future Hall of Famer. Not that it was always simple. Joining the Second Act podcast<\/a> hosted by former NFL defensive backs Roman Harper and Charles \u201cPeanut\u201d Tillman, Cowher shared several great stories of the fun \u2013 and difficulty \u2013 of coaching one of football\u2019s smartest players like Polamalu.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re playing Carson Palmer and the Bengals,\u201d Cowher said. \u201cCarson Palmer and Troy were roommates in college at USC. And so Troy comes up. We had called Cover 2. All of a sudden, Troy is up there. And I just start yelling, \u2018Cloud, Cloud, Cloud!\u2019 The ball\u2019s snapped, I go Dick [LeBeau], \u2018What the hell? Troy, he didn\u2019t even play the defense.\u2019 And he throws to the flat, Troy makes the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go, \u2018Troy, it was Cover 2.\u2019 He goes, \u2018I know, I know. But I knew it was Carson. If I was in the box, he was going to think it was three-deep because it\u2019s eight in the box. So I told Deshea [Townsend], you take half the field. I\u2019m going to take the flat from here in the box. So we have Cover 2 covered.\u2019 I told Dick, that\u2019s a great idea. I didn\u2019t think about that one. I go, \u2018If you\u2019re going to do this, next time, can you tell us you\u2019re going to do it?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Simplifying the football jargon, Polamalu made sure the integrity of the play call stayed intact by changing his and Townsend\u2019s assignments. Effectively, it became Inverted Cover 2<\/a>, a popular concept in today\u2019s NFL. All because Polamalu knew exactly how the opponent would think and could counter against it, staying a step ahead in football\u2019s chess match. That didn\u2019t just come against former roommates but all opponents. Polamalu\u2019s football intelligence was elite and made him impossible to predict. Sometimes to even his own coaching staff.<\/p>\n

Under LeBeau, Pittsburgh\u2019s aggressive Fire Zone defense<\/a> was the perfect fit for Polamalu. Aggressive, chaotic-looking, and creative, it suited Polamalu\u2019s style. But Cowher knew there was always a line to walk, even for football\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe situationally aware of what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Cowher said of his message to Polamalu. \u201cYou gotta be you but be aware of where we are in a game. What we need to have done. Don\u2019t be selfish. Don\u2019t try to make a play when you don\u2019t need to make a play.\u201d<\/p>\n

More often than not, Polamalu walked that line. Making plays without hurting his team. Cowher recalled plays where he\u2019d time the snap and leap the center,<\/a> joking the team simply changed coverage on the fly in moments like that. From three-deep, four-under coverage to three-deep, three-under, making it work in those moments were Polamalu truly went rogue. Fortunately, he was so good at timing the snap that coverage was rarely needed.<\/p>\n

Cowher needed Polamalu and Polamalu needed Cowher. Together, the two won a Super Bowl, one for the thumb in 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players make the coach. Bill Cowher\u2019s success was certainly furthered by Troy Polamalu. Though the two were together…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[19409,7,6,33640,520,57,2360,10859,426,18584],"class_list":{"0":"post-342829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-bill-cowher","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-peanut-tillman","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-roman-harper","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-troy-polamalu"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}