Nos. 99 and 98: Troy Polamalu and Brian Dawkins

There’s a moment in the 2008 AFC Championship Game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore that might explain, just a little bit, what it means to play modern safety in the NFL at the genius level, to play it at a level that goes beyond coaching, beyond game plans, beyond anything that makes easy sense.

It was the end of the first quarter, and Pittsburgh led Ba…