Pat McAfee drops F-bomb on Troy Polamalu’s story of ruining ex-Colts kicker’s night

There's a well known story that involves Pat McAfee and Troy Polamalu and there may finally be some clarity to what actually happened. The former Indianapolis Colts punter originally told the story in 2017 about playing back home in Pittsburgh for the first time as a NFL player.

He and the Colts thought they could pull one over the Pittsburgh Steelers and designed a fake field goal that McAfee intended to run into the end zone. But, Polamalu was there to stop it.

Polamalu was asked about the play on a recent appearance on "All Things Covered" podcast. And, he revealed how he knew to line up in the C-Gap and stop the play:

"Well, you know what I saw him on? I saw him too excited on the sidelines."

Troy Polamalu said that he saw McAfee 'too excited' on the sidelines, which tipped him off that a trick play may be coming. He said that the Steelers coaching staff changed its tendency to block field goals on the hash for just this one play. And, rightfully so, because it worked. He said:

"The funny thing about is we actually had a bad tendency. If I was blocking to the field, 100% field goal blocked tendency was that we don't go out there on the hash. We're always going to run as the field and then of being on a hash that was on a, you know, pretty much guaranteed a make field goal.

"Yeah and you know, our special teams coach at the time was like, 'Hey man, we just need to change up our tendency just once.' And I just remember us having that conversation before we went out there was like, 'All right, maybe this is the time to change it.' Wow. That actually, you know, I wish I would have place a little bets on lottery numbers with that guess."

As the clip of the former Steelers safety circulated on social media on Monday Morning, Pat McAfee responded. He posted a video of himself on Twitter looking around and pondering the events that led up to the blocked field goal. He then yelled out an explicitive before cutting the video.

Was Troy Polamalu forced to retire?

The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted safety Troy Polamalu with the 16th overall selection in the 2003 NFL Draft. He played 12 seasons for the Steelers and became one of the top safeties in the National Football League.

After the 2014 NFL season though, everything changed. Although he wanted to play in the NFL in 2015, the Steelers had other plans. Apparently he was told by Steelers owner Dan Rooney that if he didn't retire then the Steelers would release him.

He essentially chose to retire in April 2015, but he did consider other teams before doing so. The Tennessee Titans, whose defensive coordinator was former Steeler Dick LeBeau, showed interest but he ultimately chose to finish his career where he started it.