Where does Troy Polamalu rank among the best safeties of his era?

Troy Polamalu was one-of-a-kind. Here’s where I would rank the Pittsburgh Steelers among all NFL safeties during his era.

Like it or not, this is a debate that’s not going away. After Troy Polamalu’s inspiring Hall of Fame speech, I thought this would be a good time to re-circulate this discussion.

When it comes to the best safeties of his generation, Polamalu is right near the top of the list – I don’t think anyone is disputing that. Though he was often injured, Polamalu clearly did things on the football field that other safeties could only dream of.

Whether it was perfect timing up the snap, darting to drop a ball-carrier behind the line of scrimmage, or making a diving catch in the secondary, Polamalu had an unmatched combination of elite athletic traits to go with impeccable instincts.

Looking at Polamalu’s raw statistical production isn’t the best way to go about evaluating his importance to the team – there really is no measure for that. While other safeties may have outproduced Polamalu in a select few areas, this was mostly because the Steelers strong safety was often injured due to his violent play-style.

However, if we break down Polamalu’s average statistics in each NFL start, you can see that, on a per-game basis, he was as productive and impactful as any safety in the league during his time. Here’s how his per-star stats stack up to legendary players like Ed Reed, Brian Dawkins, and Earl Thomas in their NFL careers, according to Pro Football Reference:

This is a graphic I have shared in the past, but it’s certainly worth taking another look at. If you didn’t have an appreciation for how productive Polamalu was before, you certainly should now.

In addition to ranking higher in more of these categories per start than fellow Hall of Famer, Ed Reed, Polamalu didn’t have a single glaring hole in his production. In fact, he finished either first or second in nearly every one of these categories against arguably three of the best safeties of the 2000s.

While there is certainly something to be said for availability (and Polamalu did miss a lot of games), he was absolutely electric when healthy and made arguably a bigger impact than any defensive player in the league during his time.

Of course, it’s hard to make an argument for a player based on raw statistical production. That’s why Troy Polamalu would allow the film to speak for itself. Though he occasionally would guess wrong, the legendary safety typically knew where the play was going well before anybody else on the defense and has made some plays that I still question how they were even possible.

The biggest discussion when it comes to Polamalu and the safeties he played with in his era was whether or not he was better than Ed Reed. This is a debate I have engaged in countless times and one that I have discovered has no clear winner in the end (I’ll allow each of you to attempt to hash that out in the comments).

The reality is that Ed Reed (free safety) and Troy Polamalu (strong safety) played two different positions with very different roles and assignments to their respective defenses. Each one is arguably the best to ever play at their respective positions. For my money, Troy Polamalu was the greatest strong safety of the 2000s, and I will leave it at that. The new Hall of Famer will go down as one of the best to ever play the game.