MIAMI -- Since abruptly announcing his retirement following the Steelers' 2014 season, Troy Polamalu hasn't made himself a regular at team events.
In fact, he hasn't been around at all.
Polamalu, who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday in his first year of eligibility, said that has been by design, not out of any spite he feels about how his career ended.
"One thing that I always felt the need to do because this game has a tendency to take players and players truly become dependent on the NFL, one of the things that was important to me was that I didn’t want to identify myself as a football player," Polamalu told me Saturday night.