back to Denver- Ryan Clark's woes helped daughter

[tony hipchest]

In a way, Ryan Clark is grateful for that fateful Oct. 21, 2007 game in Denver that caused him to lose his spleen and gallbladder, which threatened his football career, not to mention his life.

One little girl benefited from that ordeal, Loghan Clark, his daughter. Like her dad, Loghan has the sickle-cell trait, which means her blood could react similarly under the kinds of stress Ryan went through in the mile-high atmosphere three years ago that wound up ravaging some internal organs.

Until it happened, he had no clue of the danger.



Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10237...#ixzz0xcxzuWpK

Clark will not play in the exhibition game Sunday night in Denver, and he did not play Nov. 9 in the Monday night game there. He will, however, run before the game again as he did last season to see if he has a reaction in case he has to play in Denver again. He had no reaction after doing so last year.

if theres ever a steelers/broncos playoff game in denver he seems hell bent on being prepared.

he gives in depth detail of what went wrong defensively last season-

"Coach Tomlin always says if you keep getting beat on the same thing, get a new problem. We were getting new problems every week, and every week there was something breaking down, whether it was communication, whether it was the rush, whether we were letting people run free in the secondary, we weren't covering backs out of the backfield. Every week it was something different. And, when that's happening to a team, it's hard for coach LeBeau to say this is how we fix it. If you have one area that you can focus on and concentrate on, maybe you can get it done, and we couldn't. It was mind-boggling.

"Guys still worked out, guys still ran to the ball, guys still studied. We paid attention in meetings. It wasn't like our attitude. We wanted to be the greatest two years in a row, and it just wasn't happening. So it was very frustrating."

Months later, Clark came up with his own answer for their problems in 2009: The absence for 11 games each of Polamalu and defensive end Aaron Smith


"When you lose not only the plays Troy makes but the plays he talks people out of trying offensively, it's tough. How comfortable we are when we're all playing together. Certain things I knew Troy was going to do and vice versa. The communication we have. When that's out of sync, you get people running free in the Kansas City game with nobody on them because the communication wasn't passed out the way it usually is."

then he goes into detail how he improved his training regimen to lose weight and become faster.

good stuff. expect his best year to date.

Ryan Clark impresses me on and off the field. His worth to the team goes way beyond playing FS. His views of last years defensive woes are spot on too.

I can't wait to see him and Troy tear it up in the backfield.

[chacha]

Ryan is a great player and everything about him sounds like a great guy and dad

[tony hipchest]

i think were pretty lucky to have him for 4 more years at $14 million. i dont think he has peaked or reached his full potential yet, and when you look at all the time safeties such as bob sanders, ed reed (and somewhat troy) miss, we get the best bang for our buck.