Mike Mulligan

And how far down do you have to go on your list, Lawrence, of the most fun and exciting defensive players you've watched in the NFL before you get to Troy Polamalu?

Goodness.

Yeah, I mean, it comes up pretty quickly.

You start thinking about, like, the greatest safeties who've ever played the game.

And in the era, there's two guys.

It's him and it's Ed Reed.

Like, those two guys and what they do.

And the thing that connects them is they were both just geniuses.

Like, they understood coverage.

Ed at a level that scared quarterbacks.

Huh.

Peyton Manning still talks about it.

There's a scene in the Belichick documentary where he and Brady are sitting there watching film, and they're watching Raven's defensive film, and just two of them sitting there raving about Ed Reed.

Yeah.

Just like how difficult it is to scheme knowing that guy's out there.

And Palomalu was also, like, really smart at figuring out stuff.

And the way that he would give up his body to make plays.

Oh, absolutely.

Physically.

But to your point on the smarts, like, he did whatever he wanted.