It’s hard to have watched Troy Polamalu play and not allow him to become your favorite player. He is one of the most remarkable athletes the NFL has ever seen, and you won’t see another Steelers 43. It may take some time, but the team may well retire his jersey number one day. As it stands, a decade on, it is one of those “unofficially retired” numbers that the team doesn’t issue.
A first-ballot Hall of Famer, Polamalu’s time with the Steelers spanned from the days of Jerome Bettis to Ryan Shazier. His tenure encompasses a lot of team history—and he made plenty of it along the way.