Filed Under » Troy Polamalu

“Hey, I like your pretty hair,” Ben Roethlisberger was heard telling Troy Polamalu yesterday during practice. “Why don’t you come over here and sit on my lap and tell me what you like about football?”

Polamalu politely declined and pushed his quarterback’s hand away from his butt, but Steelers teammates and coaches say Roethlisberger’s come-on was just his latest towards the star safety since camp began.

“You have to realize that Ben has pretty much been in seclusion since March when the incident in Georgia happened,” said a Steelers player who wished to remain anonymous. “He’s barely seen a girl in five months, let alone gotten a B.J. in a bar bathroom from one. So when he shows up to camp and sees someone with long, curly, black hair, piercing eyes, a thick butt, that soft-spoken but aggressive style … well, he pretty much can’t help himself.”

“Hell, I’ve been getting regular tail and I’m sort of attracted to Troy myself,” said the player. “He’s a very pretty man.”

So far Roethlisberger’s repeated advances have not been a distraction to the team.

“We’re all about team here once camp opens,” said head coach Mike Tomlin. “Sexual attraction can be great for bringing a team together. In fact, it’s what made the ’90s Cowboys and the Patriots of the past decade so good.”

Some teammates say Roethlisberger dropped his pants and exposed his penis to Polamalu and other teammates today after practice, “but he was going into the shower,” said one player. “Maybe it was an innocent gesture. Although I’ve come to doubt Ben makes purely innocent gestures when his penis is out.”

Reporter:Troy! Troy! Tell me about your knee. The Steelers defense is suffering without you. When can you get back on the field?

Polamalu: Well, I owe my great hair to Head & Shoulders. It’s for more than just dandruff.

Reporter: Uh, right. No, I want to know about your knee. When will it be 100-percent and when can the Steelers count on you again?

Polamalu: Head & Shoulders does seven great things for my scalp and hair.

Reporter: Didn’t ask about your hair, Troy.

Polamalu: You asked with your eyes, Trent. You asked with your eyes.

Reporter: The f—k I did! Look, I’m serious, guy … when are you going to be out on the field again? The Steelers just lost to the Chiefs, Troy. The goddam CHIEFS! Your defense let Matt Cassel drive the ball 91 yards in the fourth quarter to tie the game. Matt Cassel! Ninety-one yards! And, then, in overtime, on 3rd-and-5, Chris Chambers goes right through the defense for 61 yards. Chris Chambers, Troy! Chris f—king Chambers! That guy SUCKS! So I ask one more time … when … in the hell … is your knee going to be ready? And don’t say one word about your motherf—kingHAIR.

Polamalu: Two to three weeks.

Reporter: Thank you. And you do have nice hair, by the way.

Polamalu: Thanks.

His fellow cover subject on Madden NFL 10, Troy Polamalu, didn’t make it through the first half of his first regular season game of the year before suffering a serious knee injury. Once he saw that, Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald decided he wasn’t going to sit idly by and wait to see how fate would punish him.

Instead, he took matters into his own hands — and lost an important part of those hands in the process.

“Troy’s knee was hurt pretty bad,” said Fitzgerald. “I didn’t want something like that to happen to me — or worse. So I grabbed a butcher’s knife out of the drawer, bit down on a wooden spoon and chopped off my pinkie.”

Before he could reconsider, Fitzgerald says he threw the severed digit into his kitchen sink and pushed it far down into the drain where he could reach it.

“I didn’t want to panic and run to the hospital to have my finger re-attached,” said the receiver, “only to take the field on Sunday and have some linebacker blow out my knee on a hit. I wanted to finish this Madden business now and on my own terms. And now I can move on, I just have nine fingers to catch with now instead of 10. It’s not a big deal.”

Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhunt says he wishes his star player hadn’t taken such drastic action.

“I know he probably wanted to cash in on his huge season last year and expand his marketability, but agreeing to be on the cover of Madden is not the answer. It’s foolish. And it’s dangerous,” said Whisenhunt. “But I’m glad he only lost a finger in the end. That was smart of him to chop it off. I was worried and resigned to the fact that it would be much, much worse. I’ll take a pinkie stump.”

With his stump sitting against a bag of ice, a crude tourniquet tied around the base to stem the bleeding, Fitzgerald watched SportsCenter for any news on his fallen friend, Polamalu.

“I’ll admit that I am a little surprised to learn that it’s only an MCL sprain and that Troy should be back well before midseason,” said Fitzgerald. “It seemed much worse at first. Maybe I, uh … maybe I acted a bit rash. I’ll admit. There may have been better options. Or maybe it would have been best had I just not done anything at all. You know, I wish I still had that pinkie to re-attach. I really do. But I chopped it up in the garbage disposal.”