Suh's Nastiness Changes Lions' Culture, Makes Him A Dirty Player
By Mike Freeman, CBSSports.com
It's official: Ndamukong Suh is a dirty player.
He no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. There's too much evidence to the contrary. That great smile, nice off-field demeanor and cool ass car commercial can no longer shield him from what has become a definite. He plays dirty.
And I like Suh. A lot. He brings a nastiness to the Detroit Lions, a desire to intimidate that is changing the culture of one of the biggest losers in all of sports. This is good. No, this is great. The Lions are going to be good again and it's Suh's talent and aggression serving as the fusion for change.
"We wanted to earn respect last year," Suh told CBS following the Lions' game against New England on Saturday night. "I felt we did that. We want to continue to earn that respect. And now it's with fear, it's all about fear. It's about having quarterbacks fear us, offensive linemen fear us, every single game we step into. And that's by our play. So we want to continue to get after quarterbacks and offensive lines and wreak havoc."
That's good. Love that attitude. If you went into a laboratory and combined Michael Strahan with Warren Sapp, you'd get Suh. It doesn't get much better than that.
While his talent is undeniable and his fury a good thing, he hasn't learned to properly harness that aggression. It spills out at times uncontrollably and it's only a matter of time before Suh is suspended and his reputation morphs into something not so positive.
In fact, I think that is already happening. I can tell you the league is watching Suh's behavior extremely closely. If it continues he's going to be hit with a much more massive fine. That's a guarantee.
