PAUL POSLUSZNY

'Paul Michael Posluszny' (born October 10, 1984 in Butler, Pennsylvania), commonly known as '"Poz"', is a professional American football linebacker who currently plays for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League. He was originally drafted by the Bills in the second round (34th overall) of the 2007 NFL Draft. He played collegiately at Penn State.

Contents

High school career

Penn State career

Awards and honors

NFL career

Personal life

References

External links

High school career

Posluszny was a star halfback and linebacker at Hopewell High School in Hopewell Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania and went to play for coach Joe Paterno at Penn State—a college football program with a proud history of producing star linebackers, as shown by the school's nickname as "Linebacker U".

Penn State career

He debuted at Penn State in the fifth game of his 2003 freshman season, and in the last game of the season made his first career start at Michigan State. During the season he recorded 36 tackles, an interception (which he returned for a touchdown against Indiana), and a recovered fumble, and he was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman team by ''The Sporting News''.
In 2004 he was named as a Second Team All-Big Ten player as well as earning academic All-Big Ten honors. Prior to that season he changed to jersey #31, in honor of former Penn State players who had worn the number including All-Americans Shane Conlan and Andre Collins. He started in all 11 games and led his team with 104 tackles, and his 9.5 tackles per game average put him in a tie for fifth in the Big Ten. He also recorded 12 tackles for loss and three sacks, helping Penn State reach the national top 10 in scoring and total defense. In fact, the defense did not allow an opponent to reach over 21 points in a game all season. He also caught an interception, broke up three passes and forced a fumble on the season. He won the Big Ten Defensive Player-of-the-Week for his performance against Indiana, making 13 tackles and playing a key role in Penn State's goal-line stand to ensure the win.
In 2005 Posluszny became the first junior captain for Penn State since Mike Reid and Steve Smear in 1968. Posting 116 tackles on the season, including 14 for loss and 4 sacks, including a 21 tackle game against Northwestern [1]. He was named Big Ten Defensive Player-of-the-Week a record-breaking three consecutive times. He then joined LaVar Arrington as the second Penn State player to win both the Chuck Bednarik and Dick Butkus Awards as the College Defensive Player and Linebacker of the Year respectively, and was named as a member of the 2005 All-American Team. He helped lead the Penn State Nittany Lions to a win in the 2006 Orange Bowl against Florida State but left the game in the 4th quarter after partially tearing two ligaments in his knee; the injury did not require surgery[2]. He subsequently announced that he planned to return to Penn State for his senior year of college, rather than declare himself eligible for the 2006 NFL Draft, a decision which, a year later, was considered "a boon," with Posluszny completing the 2006 season with 116 tackles and a school-high career total 372 tackles.^[1]
In 2006, he continued captaincy, along with Levi Brown. Jack Ham, former All-American Linebacker at Penn State, said that Posluszny is the greatest linebacker to ever play at Penn State [3]. On November 4, 2006, he broke Greg Buttle's school record for tackles. Posluszny now has 372 career tackles, with 116 of them coming this season. 9.5 of those tackles were for a loss. He also has 3 sacks and 2 forced fumbles[4]. Posluszny won the 2006 Chuck Bednarik Award to become only the second person (after Pat Fitzgerald) to win the award two times. Posluszny was also named a member of the 2006 All-American Team, the first Penn State linebacker to be a two-time AP All-American.
Posluszny graduated a semester early in December of 2006 with a Bachelor of Science in finance and a 3.57 GPA. He is a two-time ''ESPN The Magazine'' Academic All-American and was named 2006 Academic All-American of the Year. He was also a finalist for the Draddy Trophy, which is presented to the nations' top student-athlete.[5]

Awards and honors

★ ''Sporting News'' Big Ten All-Freshman (2003)

★ Second-team All-Big Ten (2004)

★ 2x First-team All-Big Ten (2005-2006)

★ 2x First-team ''AP'' All-American (2005-2006)

★ Dick Butkus Award (2005)

★ Chuck Bednarik Award (2005-2006)

NFL career

Predicted by many to be selected in the mid-1st round, Posluszny was not drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the 2007 NFL Draft until the second round, after they swapped picks with the Detroit Lions to move up to grab Posluszny with the 34th pick overall. Despite wearing the same uniform number as protégé Shane Conlan at Penn State, Posluszny has demonstrated a desire to forge his own legacy by not choosing the number 58 Colan wore with the Bills, but instead choosing number 51. On September 2nd, 2007 exactly one week before the regular season "Poz" was named the starting middle linebacker by coach Dick Jauron

Personal life

Posluszny's younger brother David plays NCAA Football at the University of Notre Dame for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. His older brother Stanley was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 2006 MLB Draft.

References

1. Waiting year pays off for Posluszny

External links

★ Penn State football profile

★ "Paul Posluszny: PSU's best ever?", ''York Daily Record'', December 27, 2006