Troy Polamalu is healthy this year and is already showing that he's back to full form.  That, however, has nothing to do with his recent comments.  He treats his wife like a queen, is an expectant father, and a tough football player.  He's also a team player, and is now defending his teammates for what he believes to be nonsense fines. Polamalu publicly criticized the NFL by saying that guys like Jack Lambert, Ronnie Lott, Dick Butkus and others probably couldn't play in today's NFL because they'd fined out of the league.

His comments stem from the recent penalties and fines handed down by the NFL to his teammates in the past couple of weeks.  Hines Ward has been fined 2 weeks in a row for what was deemed "unnecessary roughness," yet no penalty was called either time.  Ward is known for being one of the best blocking WRs in the game today, but now all of a sudden the NFL thinks he's being too rough.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but football IS a rough sport, correct?  However, that's just the beginning of the fines.

But there's still one more penalty (at least given to the Steelers) which was one of the worst calls I've seen in a long time.  A quarterback sees the blitz coming.  He gets rid of the ball, but still gets hit a half-second later because the defender is coming at him and can't stop.  It happens all the time and that's part of the game.  This had also been happening all night in the Steelers/Jaguars game several weeks ago.  However, late in the game, James Harrison made this play, and was penalized for roughing the passer.  James Harrison then said after the game "you don't make that call unless you have money on the game."  Harrison had to cough up 20,000 bucks for that comment, even though he was right.

Troy Polamalu is right when he says the NFL is becoming a pansy game.  What Polamalu and the rest of the Steelers organization are referring to on this, however, are the fines handed down to WR Hines Ward.  He's been fined $15,000 in the past 2 weeks.  The NFL has failed to show video evidence of the hits they're talking about.  I'm waiting to see if Polamalu gets fined for this, and if he does, it will just prove further that the NFL is becoming a watered-down version of what it once was.  We might as well just let the teams strap on a belt with a couple of flags and play a powderpuff game, because it's starting to get to that point this year with these ridiculous fines and penalties for routine plays.

Keep speaking your mind, Troy.  Hines, don't change the way you play the game and James Harrison, I applaud you for speaking out against the NFL.  It may have cost Harrison a few bucks, but that had to be said.  Until next time, here's to the hope that the NFL will let the players block and hit without fearing that they're going to get penalized if they so much as sneeze on the quarterback.

BK over and out