Posluszny knows how to tackle adversity Paul Sokoloski Opinion

The first NFL season for Paul Posluszny ended almost as soon as it got started.

And it was enough to make the rough, tough Buffalo Bills linebacker feel as helpless as a child.

“Broke my arm, third game of the season,” Posluszny said, still shaking his head in disbelief. “Who breaks an arm? You think of a 3- or 4-year-old kid when you talk about someone breaking an arm.”

Fortunately, he had a painful experience at Penn State to help him get through the ordeal.

Long before he became the first rookie to ever start at middle linebacker for the Bills last season, Posluszny starred at Penn State – better known as “Linebacker U.”

He became one of the few two-year captains in Nittany Lions history. He was called the best linebacker in Penn State history by none other than Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker and former Penn Stater Jack Ham. And Posluszny set a school record at the time by making 372 career tackles.

Late in the 2006 Orange Bowl, the last game of his junior college season, Posluszny suffered partial tears of his PCL and MCL in his right knee. Legend has it Posluszny pleaded with team doctors to let him back in the game – to no avail.

“It was a tough, tough situation,” said Posluszny, who spent time in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area during a promotional visit – signing autographs and conversing with fans – over the weekend for the Ken Pollock Chevrolet dealerships in Pittston Township and Carbondale.

So Posluszny can empathize with current Penn State linebacker Sean Lee, who will miss his senior season this fall with a torn ACL suffered in spring drills.

“Oh, especially with an injury like that to a person like that,” said Posluszny, who spent some time during last month’s Blue-White Game trying to help Lee deal with the disaster. “Sean’s such a great guy. Because of the type of kid that Sean is, when he’s healthy and ready to play again, he’ll be stronger for it.”

He came back from his own knee troubles in college to win a second Bednarik Award as the nation’s best defensive player during his senior season of 2006. Shifting to the inside linebacker position from outside, Posluszny became the first Nittany Lion to record more than 100 tackles three times in his career.

“I’m glad I went through it,” Posluszny said. “It was a great learning experience, (which) was a tough thing to believe at first. It gave NFL teams a chance to see me play middle linebacker, which wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get hurt.”

In the third game of his rookie NFL season, the injury bug bit him again while he was making a tackle in a loss to New England.

“It was so disappointing,” said Posluszny, a second-round draft pick by Buffalo who finished with 26 tackles in the three games he played in 2007. “One of my teammates hit me with his helmet. It just snapped.”

“I knew it was going to be a long road, from what I went through in college,” said Posluszny, proclaiming himself fully recovered from his bad break while he prepared to join Monday’s off-season mini-camp with the Bills. “Having to almost redshirt one year, getting a chance to study and learn the (NFL) game, I think it’ll help me in the long run.”