Tim Benz: My bad, Troy. I could've done this better.

My bad, Troy.

You deserved better for this.

I dropped the ball.

I was so busy being concerned about Steelers guard Alan Faneca getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — and mad when I found out that it didn’t happen — that I barely acknowledged your candidacy and presumptive election.

Which, to no one’s surprise, eventually happened.

Yes, Steelers safety Troy Polamalu got into the Hall of Fame Saturday night on his first try as a finalist.

And I didn’t write much about it. Not in the few days after his election. Nor in the weeks leading up to the selection announcement in Miami before the Super Bowl.

That wasn’t intentional, though. It’s not like I was uninterested in his nomination, or had some personal dislike for Polamalu.

Quite the opposite, actually. Polamalu is one of the best people that I’ve covered in the nearly 25 years I’ve been working in sports media.

Note, I said one of the best people I’ve ever covered. Not one of the best athletes.

The athletic part of it, you all saw. And, apparently, so did the voters. He had less of an issue getting to Canton than he did getting to Joe Flacco in 2010.

#OTD in 2010, Troy Polamalu came out of nowhere to knock the ball loose against the Ravens. #SteelersHistory pic.twitter.com/g3ooewK3nn

— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) December 6, 2017

The person part of it? Actually, I guess a lot of you saw that, too.

Because of the 2.3 million people within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, I feel like at least 1.3 million have a story about Polamalu randomly picking up their tab at dinner, pulling over to fix their flat tire, saving their cat from a tree, and even flying around the globe so quickly he reversed time by spinning the earth backwards on its axis to save our whole city.

At least once.

Maybe twice, if you count this play.

No. 4️⃣3️⃣ sends the @steelers to @SuperBowl 4️⃣3️⃣. (2008 AFC Championship)@tpolamalu | #HereWeGo | #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/Vg80D8Repl

— NFL Throwback (@nflthrowback) January 16, 2020

I don’t have a cat. I probably can’t afford to eat in the same places Polamalu does.

And I don’t have a daughter. So I’ve got no fun anecdotes about him buying an entire troop of girl scouts out of their Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

But, yes, I heard that rumor, too.

Polamalu never did any of that “for the ‘Gram.”

Instagram wasn’t even around for the first half of his career. Twitter wasn’t his thing either. Polamalu just did good deeds like that because he felt as if he was placed in a position of privilege and he wanted to share the wealth a little bit.

Did Polamalu really do all those things people claim? Unlikely. But those urban legends take wing because he probably did some of them much more than once.

And whenever he did meet some random fan innocuously, my guess is the interaction was so positive that everyone he came across wanted to believe the more grandiose tales of generosity and pass them on as their own.

Kind of like Bill Mazeroski’s homer. Forbes Field only had about 36,000 people in it that day. But 360,000 tell you they were there.

I’d say about 100,000 of them probably weren’t even born before it was torn down.

So while I never saw Polamalu stop traffic to help a little old lady across the street with my own eyes, I also never saw him show up a reporter, or deny an interview request at his locker, or hold a grudge after criticism.

I never saw him greet someone without a smile, or answer a question without making sure he got the whole context, or be condescending if he didn’t agree with the nature of an inquiry.

Even though I think he liked doing interviews as much as opposing quarterbacks liked seeing that flowing mane of his creep up toward the line of scrimmage pre-snap.

Unless you were asking him about music, travel or junk food. Then he’d talk your ear off as if he had known you his whole life.

And when a Hall of Fame reputation off the field meets his Hall of Fame credentials of eight Pro Bowls, four All-Pros, an All-Decade election, a defensive player of the year award and two Super Bowl rings, you’re getting in on the first ballot.

It was a lock. A sure bet. A fait accompli.

So maybe I blew off Polamalu’s big day as a foregone conclusion. As a columnist and a talk show host, I thrive on controversy, debates, close callsand ripping those who did the wrong thing.

I got distracted.

I mean, why bother talking about Polamalu’s “sure thing” election when the angle over whether or not Faneca would get in was denser and more questionable?

Pfft! I mean, who would vote against a safety with a resume like the one I listed above?

Then again, who would vote against a guard with nine Pro Bowls, six first-team All-Pros, an All-Decade election, a Super Bowl ring and perhaps the most iconic block in Super Bowl history?

Oops. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

I guess, in the end, both Polamalu and Faneca deserved better. Faneca deserved to get elected. And Polamalu deserved to have no negatives surrounding a teammate he battled with for years on a day that should be about his coronation.

I’ll get myself straightened out by August when Polamalu gets his gold jacket.

Let’s hope the Hall of Fame voters can make the same promise to Faneca by next February.