Just another day at the office for Polamalu

BALTIMORE – They looked doomed. It was over. And as Sunday night drew late, desperation filled the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive huddle.

"Somebody make a play!" the players shouted.

Then Troy Polamalu(notes) did.

This is the great thing about the NFL. In a game that is supposed to be about team and sacrifice, there are a precious few players who can make magic happen when there's nothing else to grasp. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco(notes) never saw Polamalu flying around his offensive line as he stepped back to throw a second-down pass with just 3:22 left in a game the Ravens seemed sure to win. Then everything happened too fast: Polamalu's hands crashed down on Flacco's arm, the ball bounded away and Pittsburgh's LaMarr Woodley(notes) ran the other way, toward Baltimore's goal line cradling victory in his arms.

The Steelers laughed. Polamalu again. Same old Troy

"Does it surprise you?" asked Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel(notes), his eyes wide, an untamed beard spilling down his chin. "Well, no it doesn't surprise us either."

So here we are in December and once again it's Pittsburgh pulling ahead in the AFC North, wrestling a victory it never should have had from a team that might be better. But somehow names on a roster never matter as long as there's that one rare player who always happens to be at the right place at the most dire instance to change everything.

Looking back, when Pittsburgh's 13-10 victory over Baltimore is dissected, it will all seem so simple. The Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau called for an all-out blitz, a cover zero, the players said had been installed just a few days before. It was a blitz that looked devastating in practice but just because something new looks good when the players are wearing shorts and no shoulder pads doesn't mean it will work in the middle of a game, especially one like Sunday's.

Not only did it work, the Ravens were so befuddled trying to figure out who to block they somehow ignored Polamalu, which – of course – turned out to be a big mistake.

"No shock to us it was No. 43," Keisel said.

This is something coach Mike Tomlin talks about with his team. He tells them in their meetings, at practice, that the best players "have to make plays."

Sunday, in addition to Polamalu, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger(notes) carried them as well. For it was also Roethlisberger who quickly lined up the Steelers on a fourth-and-1 in the third quarter and drew the Ravens into a neutral zone infraction and a first down, keeping alive a march that led to a field goal. And it too was Roethlisberger who, about to be sacked by Baltimore's Terrell Suggs(notes), managed to fling the ball out of bounds, two plays before he fired the game-winning touchdown pass.

If anyone still doesn't understand why the Steelers stuck with Roethlisberger after last spring's barroom debacle in Georgia and the ugly Georgia Bureau of Investigation report, it was because of plays like this, of the wins he can deliver when his foot is aching and his nose has been broken. Likewise, it should be clear now that Polamalu's knee injuries last season had more than anything to do with why the Steelers stumbled just months after winning the Super Bowl.

Pittsburgh can not afford to lose either player.

Which is why as Sunday turned into Monday and the Steelers' locker room cleared completely of players until only one locker stall still had clothes lingering on a rack beneath a wooden etching of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, the team waited for Troy Polamalu. He had been in the training room, letting the doctors tend to his aching body, only to emerge nearly an hour after the game in a pair of sweatpants, hobbling like a man 50 years older, heading for the shower.

Tomlin, dressed in a suit, ready for the plane, walked into the locker room and noticed a group of reporters standing near Polamalu's locker and began to laugh.

"Y'all waiting for Troy washing his hair?" Tomlin asked.

Then he turned back, toward the showers and yelled into the steam:

"Troy, you in there washing your hair? I won't leave you baby. Take your time."

The coach, presented with a victory he couldn't have expected, was giddy. Earlier, back when the win was still fresh, he stood outside the locker room clapping his hands, congratulating his players when two Baltimore police officers appeared holding an obviously drunk Steelers fan in a Woodley jersey. The police could not lead the man away until the Steelers had cleared the corridor, which was a bonanza to the man who screamed and smiled even as the officers clutched his handcuffed wrists.

Tomlin grinned, walked over to the man and said: "Be cool buddy. I don't want to see you locked up."

Not that it mattered, Polamalu and the rest of the joyous Steelers soon came walking down the corridor. The fan was thrilled.

Later, long after he showered, Polamalu would say none of what happened on the field was anything special, that his play was more fortunate than anything and the result of a great call from LeBeau – ignoring, of course, the fact the players had been shouting frantically: "Somebody make a play!"

He shrugged and dressed slowly.

He said he was sure the Ravens were going to run the ball on the play in which he saved the night and first place for Pittsburgh.

"Coach LeBeau was a step ahead," said Polamalu who is always three steps ahead of everybody else.