I was thinking of a past (football) player that Troy Polamalu
is in the mold of and could never figure one out. Then realized that this is because he is like no other strong safety before him. There are two 'moves' of his that I saw that made me think of athletes like: Barry Sanders, Gale Sayers, and (finally) Jim Thorpe.
I recall two years ago, an (extra-) slow motion replay of him changing directions in mid air as he was falling to react and get his hand under a falling incomplete pass to intercept it. It was as if it was an instantaneous redirecting of his entire body (I think that matches the shot of him above). Then I just saw him now playing the Cleveland Browns where he timed this blitz from beyond the middle linebacker (covering) zone directly into the left guard and was just about as close as you can be to the line when the Quarterback hjked it and (in addition) he was leaping into the backfield when the play began! And he is recovering from an Achilles related injury as well. The dude is a beast. He is more like Jim Thorpe (amongst those two running backs) in the sense of being a game culture-changing 'complete' athlete (the likes of Micheal Jordan, Barry Sanders, Reggie White, Deon Sanders, etc.):
