Troy Polamalu Named AP NFL Defensive Player Of the Year Over Clay Matthews

The Pittsburgh Steelers Troy Polamalu beat out the Packers Clay Matthews, teammate James Harrison, Julius Peppers, Brian Urlacher, Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata for the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award. While the sports talking heads had all but given the award to Clay Matthews, the nationwide 50 media member panel gave the most 1st place votes to Polamalu.

Troy beat Matthews by just a hair, 17 first place votes to 15. Pittsburgh's James Harrison was 3rd with 8 1st place votes. Peppers got 6, Urlacher 2 and the Baltimore Ravens Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata received 1. Even though Polamalu missed a couple of late season games due to injury, he impressed enough members to win the award. Now the real competition between these two players will come to a head in Super Bowl XV. We will see which one has the most impact on the outcome. Congratulations Troy!