The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off of their worst season under head coach Mike Tomlin and it sounds as though they are hard at work to get back on track. In Pittsburgh the goal of every season is to win a Super Bowl and not making the playoffs is something that is not acceptable. That means things are changing this off-season for the Steelers.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu can see a change in the team:
“There’s a little more of an edge,” Polamalu said. “Sometimes, when you’ve had consecutive years of some success, you get a little complacent, which is maybe natural, I don’t know. It’s definitely something that we’ve probably dealt with around here a little bit, last season being an example.”
Complacency is something that most people have dealt with at work during their lifetime. When you do the same job for a long-time and have success it’s easy to stop innovating and stop working as hard as you might have at the start. However, once there is a sign of failure it makes you take a step back and look at what you are doing and make changes moving forward.
Polamalu is working hard this off-season to show the young players how to excel in the NFL. He is mentoring fourth round pick Shamarko Thomas this off-season and called him a “great, great kid.”
Polamalu is also working on getting over some injury issues that he has suffered through during the past few years. According to him the calf injury that plagued his 2012 season has bothered him for four years and he took on a new training regime this off-season to break down scar tissue and help him overcome the injury issues he has suffered through.
“I have done quite a bit of different things this off-season,” Polamalu said. “Not to get too deep into muscular biomechanics, but you can break down scar tissue. The problem is your body has to continue to learn how to re-adapt with broken scar tissue. These are all things I have learned,” Polamalu said. “Hopefully, all of this will make these problems obsolete.”
At this point in his career Polamalu understands that he must work even harder than before to stay in shape and be ready to play in the NFL. To do that he has taken on new workouts and hopefully they will pay off with a healthy and productive season in 2013.
