It has been two and a half years now since Troy Polamalu last played football. He played the entirety of what will inevitably be canonized as a Hall-of-Fame career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he played proudly for the city, giving everything on the field. Yet that doesn’t mean that he has the greatest relationship with the front office right now.
I think most are aware that while Polamalu retired after the 2014 season, he did so somewhat under duress, or at least under the very strong urging from the front office. It seems readily apparent that he believed that he could still play, but the Steelers were ready to move on, and presumably ‘coaxed’ him into retiring.