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According the Ndamukong Suh’s personal trainer Mike Barwis, when Suh hits the field for training camp, he will be a “physical specimen.”
“Ndamukong is a stud,” said Barwis, “… He trains very, very hard. Guys finish up the workouts, and he’s the guy in there who stays extra to condition beyond what’s demanded of him, and these workouts are pretty hellacious. A guy like that is a pretty unique guy. … He knows what he has to do to be ready, and I think he’s proven that every year he’s been ready.”
The Detroit lions played a great game against the Bengals but came up on the short end of a 27-24 loss. The setback puts the Lions at 4-3.
Next up for Detroit are the Dallas Cowboys and the key matchup in that contest will be rookie center Travis Frederick against defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh.
One player Lions Coach Jim Schwartz will be keeping his eyes on is Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant.
“And I think that Dez Bryant in particular has really improved over the course of his career. We saw him as a really young player a few years ago. He’s playing like a veteran player now. He’s taken the load of the No. 1 receiver. That’s a big burden to be the No. 1 receiver. You’re going to see attention every week. You’re going to see double teams. You’re going to see corners rolled to your side and it’s a big mental adjustment to go through that and I think that Dez Bryant has done that. He’s made big plays for them. He’s always been a really strong player, but you just see him maturing as a player and I think that’s good for the NFL when you see young players improve like he has.
Great seats/tickets are still available for this NFC Matchup.
Lions coach Jim Schwartz says he isn’t worried about the car crash defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh was involved in last weekend in Portland, Ore.
Schwartz told a Detroit radio station Tuesday he believes Suh is under “too much of a microscope” because of the incident.
“We just worry about him on the field,” Schwartz told 97.1 during his weekly radio appearance. “Ndamukong is a hard-working guy; he hasn’t had any kind of issues with the law, including this one. Let’s worry about him on the field and those things, get him back playing well.”
Schwartz told the station he heard Suh wasn’t injured in the crash, but said he hasn’t been allowed to contact Suh because of the player’s two-game suspension. Suh stomped on the right arm of Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith on Thanksgiving Day, was ejected, and then suspended by the NFL.
“He can’t be in our building, that’s why he’s in his hometown of Portland,” Schwartz said. “He can’t go to meetings. We can’t have contact with him. We did get word that he was uninjured, and that’s about all we really know.”
Suh served the first game of his suspension last weekend and is off the active roster for Sunday’s home game against Minnesota. He’s expected to return for the Dec. 18 game at Oakland.
Suh’s image took a hit after his ejection, and remains under scrutiny because of the crash. Schwartz, however, claims the criticism of Suh’s character isn’t more of a problem than that of any other player.
“I’m concerned about every player we have,” Schwartz said. “I think that was not something he wants on his resume, particularly after what happened on Thanksgiving. And in fairness to him, that’s really the first thing he had after the whistle, something that wasn’t part of the play.”
Russell Spielman, Suh’s marketing agent, wouldn’t speculate about his client possibly losing endorsement deals with Chrysler, Subway and Nike, or if Suh plans on speaking publicly about his off-field problems before his suspension ends Dec. 12.
“When we’re ready to speak, we’ll speak,” Spielman said
Schwartz described Suh’s accident as a “fender bender,” but a police report obtained by The Detroit News paints a slightly different picture.
The report includes interviews from two female passengers among the three passengers in Suh’s vehicle.
The women claim Suh was driving his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle at an uncontrollable speed around 1:14 a.m. on Dec. 3 in downtown Portland before the car spun and crashed into a light pole, water fountain and tree near Dante’s night club.
Police amended the original report after the passengers reported their injuries, but no citations will be issued and no one will be charged, police said.
Suh told police he tried to drive around a parked taxi on the dry, paved street before he lost control of his vehicle.
The two women, according to the report, claim otherwise.
“There was never a taxi,” a passenger told police. “He was just going too fast and he could have killed someone at Dante’s.”
Attempts by The News to reach employees at Dante’s were unsuccessful.
Police also didn’t administer a sobriety test on Suh because they said he showed no signs of impairment. Police also said Suh was “very cooperative” after the crash and provided a valid driver’s license and proof of insurance.
Attempts by The News to reach Suh were unsuccessful.
The report also said two female passengers were hurt in the crash and required hospitalization. The second injured person was quoted as saying, “He was driving unsafe. It was just clear to me that we were going too fast.”
It also mentions one injured passenger had a “laceration to her forehead that required five stitches, a black eye, a ‘busted’ lip and a torn shoulder muscle.”
Suh, according to police, called 9-1-1 to report the crash. A Portland TV station, KGW, obtained a recording of that call.
When asked, “Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance?” the station reported Suh replied, “Yes, everyone is fine.”
Yet, in the police report, a passenger said she told Suh repeatedly she was hurt and needed a doctor. She said he refused and told her she was fine.
She had her husband pick her up and take her to Oregon Health and Science University for treatment.
Messages left on the cell phone of Blaine Smith, a witness mentioned in the police report, weren’t returned.
A witness named Allan, who also called 9-1-1 to report the crash, spoke Monday to KGW.
He said the driver “floored it” when a stoplight turned green at 3rd and Burnside streets. He said it looked like the driver was trying to “show off.”
Allan also told KGW there were no cars in front of Suh’s vehicle and he did not see a taxi.
Two of the passengers told police they wanted their names to remain confidential because they feared for their safety because Suh has “lots of friends and family” in the Portland area.
The accident last weekend wasn’t the first such incident Suh has been involved in.
Last year, Suh was in an accident in Royal Oak (11 Mile and Campbell) with a 30-year-old Shelby Township woman.
Police said the woman was at fault because she disobeyed a traffic signal as she attempted to turn southbound on Campbell.
The woman’s Honda Civic struck Suh’s Land Rover as he headed east on 11 Mile.
Suh wasn’t injured, and alcohol wasn’t involved, but police said the woman suffered minor injuries.
According to the Associated Press report, Suh was in an accident at Nebraska.
Suh pled guilty to negligent driving and paid a $60 fine after crashing into three parked cars.
Suh, reportedly driving his mother’s SUV, said he swerved to avoid a cat. He also paid $48 in court costs.
eric.lacy@detnews.com
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Portland, Ore.— Police in Oregon say Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh crashed his car into a tree in downtown Portland, but was not injured.
Police say Suh was not impaired and was cooperative with officers following the accident at about 1:15 a.m. Saturday. Suh lost control of the 1970 Chevrolet Coupe he was driving, which then hit a curb, light pole, drinking fountain and tree. His vehicle was towed from the scene.
Suh had two passengers in the vehicle. They were not injured.
Suh is a graduate of Portland’s Grant High School. He was the NFL’s 2010 defensive rookie of the year. On Tuesday, the league suspended him for two games for stomping the arm of Packers guard Evan Dietrich-Smith.
Allen Park — He’s gone, but hardly forgotten. And he’ll be back, perhaps sooner rather than later.
So even as the Lions tried their best Tuesday to ignore the elephant notin the room, the question remains: What do they do with Ndamukong Suh?
The NFL weighed in with its initial answer, handing down a two-game suspension in response to Suh’s helmet-grinding, foot-stomping ejection in last week’s loss to Green Bay.
And the Lions all-Pro defensive tackle countered with his own reply, appealing the suspension at the urging of the NFL Players Association and others, no matter how tone deaf that strikes some in Suh’s growing legion of critics.
But while the expedited (and likely fruitless) appeal won’t change the immediate plans — Suh is expected to miss Sunday’s game at New Orleans and next week’s home game against Minnesota — it still left the entire organization, and particularly the players, stuck in an awkward limbo.
Not just because the team returned to practice without its best defensive player. But also because his absence leaves his teammates to answer for him, literally and figuratively.
And while none of them cared to reprimand Suh publicly Tuesday, I think it’s safe to say they’ve had enough of the nonsense, just like most everyone else, including the league’s disciplinarians.
After getting tossed for stomping on Packers guard Evan Dietrich-Smith — not to mention the Ford family’s treasured Thanksgiving tradition — Suh spent a good chunk of last Friday meeting with coaches and teammates before finally issuing his day-late, dollars-short apology to the Lions and his “true fans” via Facebook. Team officials also issued a statement then, expressing all the proper regrets to try to minimize the public-relations damage after a nationally televised meltdown.
But Suh has yet to speak to reporters since his defiant postgame news conference took a bad situation and made it immeasurably worse. (He also has yet to apologize to Dietrich-Smith, as far as we know. The Packers guard avoided the media Tuesday in Green Bay.)
Suh was back with the team in Allen Park on Tuesday morning, but got the anticipated phone call from the NFL about the suspension — one that included a ban from the practice facility — and just like that, he was kicked out. Again.
So we’ll have to wait a while longer to hear from him directly about where he goes from here, or how he truly intends to make amends and start repairing his reputation while the Lions try to salvage a playoff berth.
“He’s going to have to deal with the repercussions of it personally,” said veteran defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch, a team captain who said he had a 1-on-1 talk with Suh last Friday. “We’ll handle the effects it has on us as a team. But it’s gonna be tough for him.”
It’ll be tougher still, because for all of Suh’s good qualities — on and off the field — contrition doesn’t appear to be one of them, at least publicly.
Yet, Lions coach Jim Schwartz said he’s had “a lot of conversations with (Suh) the last two days and I think he is in a different spot,” than he was — emotionally — after the game.
“I think, for sure, he understands the position that he put his team in the game, and also the position that we’re in right now,” Schwartz added. “And he feels a tremendous sense of responsibility for that. There’s an accountability for what we do on the field and he — particularly these last couple days — is well aware of that.”
And yes, I’m well aware contrition isn’t exactly what the Lions — or their playoff-starved fans — need from Suh to reach the postseason. But therein lies the real challenge going forward.
Now that one of the team’s cornerstone players — the face of the franchise, alongside quarterback Matthew Stafford — has crossed the line, how will he handle this tightrope walk? How will he handle the backlash? How will he handle his emotions? And, quite frankly, how will it affect his play on the field?
Because if Suh thought he was a target before all this — and that’s why he said he went to New York to meet with commissioner Roger Goodell and others — it’s going to be far worse for him now. Everyone from Hall of Famer “Mean” Joe Greene to Suh’s head coach was saying that this week — “Everybody knows that he’s had this one, and players are gonna push him to the edge,” Schwartz said — as this Suh saga spiraled out of control.
Look, the sooner he returns, the sooner his teammates can forget about what he has done. And the sooner he can start doing something about it.
But for the foreseeable future, the question is always going to be whether Suh can keep his cool.
“It’s difficult,” Vanden Bosch said. “A lot of things happen in the game and you’re taught to be aggressive, you’re taught to be as physical as possible, and when people are doing things to you throughout the course of a game to try to antagonize you … sometimes it’s difficult to swallow your pride and walk away and move on.
“Especially in the heat of the moment. A lot of people just want to say, well, he just should’ve walked away. And even though that’s the right thing to do, in that moment, a lot of people don’t understand how difficult that is to do.”
Maybe not, but Suh better understand now.
And I think that’s the real appeal here — not to the NFL, but to Suh. He better swallow his pride — easy for me to say, I know — before he lets it swallow his career.
john.niyo@detnews.com
twitter.com/JohnNiyo
Allen Park— Chances are, Willie Young is spending most of his free weekend fishing from a dock off the coast of Florida.
He’ll take his catch home, fry it up for his family and relax.
“I love all kinds of fishing, and when I am free, that is what I love to do,” the Lions defensive end said. “I want to find some fishing holes up there in Michigan.”
Off the field, Young is low-key, searching for the perfect fishing spot.
On the field, he’s confident and excitable.
Young throws his hair back into a ponytail and sports a look of indignation. Young, a seventh-round draft pick in 2010 (213th overall), compiled 20.5 career sacks and 45 tackles for loss (second in school history) at North Carolina State.
But at 6-foot-5 and 251 pounds, he’s built more like a basketball player.
“I ain’t no seventh-round pick,” Young said.
And he’s showing that.
This season, the backup defensive end has 10 tackles and two sacks.
“I don’t feel like I am out of place,” Young said. “I’ve always felt I was in place. I just had to adjust to the business side of things, and once I did that, it has been smooth sailing.”
Teammate Corey Williams is one of Young’s biggest boosters and role models.
“All this first round, second round, sixth round, that don’t mean nothing,” Williams said. “If you’ve got the heart to get out there, you belong. Look at how many guys were picked in the first round and were busts. Look how many picked in the first round are not even in the league.
“When you are picked low it doesn’t do anything but make you more hungry. You got to go out and grind it out.”
Young grew up in Riviera Beach, Fla., where it was a challenge every day.
“I come from nothing where nothing was given to me,” said Young, adding that his parents were strict. “When I was growing up I was always hungry. I always wanted more and I took nothing for granted.”
That determination is what continues to drive Young today.
And it doesn’t go unnoticed by his teammates.
“The young man’s got a lot of potential,” Williams said. “I don’t think he realizes what type of potential he has. Once he settles down and relaxes and lets the game come to him, he is going to make a lot of money in this league. It is hard to find somebody built like that who can get off the ball and play the run and the pass like that. He is special.”
If nothing else, Young is confident.
He admits he needs to improve on his game but also says: “I have no weaknesses.”
As a rookie, Young played in two games, but impressed coaches with his energy and length.
This season, he’s making an impact, providing depth on the rush edge.
“He is a different guy mentally,” defensive end Cliff Avril said. “Once he understood this was a business as well as a game and he got serious, that is when he started to be a whole different guy. It is great to see him being successful.”
Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh also has been impressed with Young’s maturity and ability.
“He is always productive, and he is always ready when he gets out there,” Suh said. “He is an exciting player and makes plays and it is exciting to see him play as he has come into a huge spotlight.”
But right now, Young is just enjoying life.
“I am riding the wave right now,” he said. “I don’t think it has really hit me that I am in the league now.”
terry.foster@detnews.com
(313) 222-1494
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Allen Park
Go ahead and say it, even if it’s premature, even if it sounds kind of funny and almost never gets said around here.
The Lions are a playoff team. Yep, they are. Or should be. Or will be.
They look like it, they snarl like it, and most important, they go on the road and play like it. The Lions are 6-2 at the bye after spending Sunday in Denver treating their opponent as if picking wings off flies. The Lions have a brutishness about them that makes some people uncomfortable, but is mostly necessary in the NFL.
Hey, if drama addicts want to slap labels of “evil” and “dirty” on the Lions, so be it. Those are much better than previous labels of “irrelevant” and “horrific.”
But it’s apparent they aren’t just some nasty bunch that knock quarterbacks and “quarterbacks” (hello, Tim Tebow) on their derrieres. Ndamukong Suh plans a trip to New York this week to make that point with commissioner Roger Goodell. Suh plays on the edge and occasionally crosses it, but I think his intentions are more about impunity than impurity.
The Lions want their defense to be intimidating, and it can be. What they did to Tebow in that 45-10 pasting wasn’t mean. It was predictable. And linebacker Stephen Tulloch swears no disrespect was intended by his post-sack pose, when he went down on a knee to mimic the “Tebowing” craze.
The Lions push the envelope when it comes to abrasiveness, and they do have to be careful. No sense doing too much “Suh-bowing” or “Elbowing.” But they shouldn’t care what anyone calls them as long as they’re not committing dumb penalties, and as long as they push the pocket as well as the envelope.
The Lions sacked Tebow seven times and are third in the league with 24, behind only the Giants and Ravens.
“I think you get an edge by doing things that are within your personality,” coach Jim Schwartz said Monday. “For us, that’s rushing the quarterback, sacking the quarterback, making big plays. Those are the things we want people to respect about us. Those are the things we want people to fear about us.”
Those are the things that turn middlin’ teams into playoff teams. I’m sure you’re aware the Lions haven’t made the playoffs since the 1999 season, when Bobby Ross was the coach and Gus Frerotte (!) was the quarterback.
The schedule toughens considerably now, starting with a visit to Chicago after the bye. There are two meetings with Green Bay and trips to New Orleans and Oakland. But the Lions have won six straight on the road after dropping a tidy 26 in a row.
A mere split of the final eight games makes them 10-6 and a potential wild card. If you’re into all the probability gobbledygook, a 6-2 team has a 79.2 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Stats, LLC (since 1990). Here’s an even better number: A team that wins its first four road games has a 91.4 percent chance.
And you thought you’d be bored in January. I’m risking looking foolish here, but that’s OK. The Lions actually are loaded with talent, and that’s not a loaded statement. Nor am I loaded right now. On the Fox broadcast Sunday, former NFL safety John Lynch suggested the Lions have as much talent as any team in the league.
Not sure about that, but they do have as much defensive-line talent as anybody. For all the acclaim about Suh, Corey Williams and Kyle Vanden Bosch, don’t overlook Cliff Avril and Lawrence Jackson. Schwartz and GM Martin Mayhew said they’d rebuild by unleashing mayhem upon opposing quarterbacks, and that’s one way — maybe the best way — to win in the NFL.
Having a franchise quarterback is another way, and Matthew Stafford has overcome injuries and bouts with accuracy doubts to put up impressive numbers — 19 touchdown passes and four interceptions.
A growing dynamic is the way the defense complements the offense.
Against the Broncos, Avril had a 24-yard fumble return for a touchdown, and underrated cornerback Chris Houston added a 100-yard interception return. You could say both bear asterisks because they came against Tebow, but that’s mean.
You know what playoff teams do? They win on the road. They sack the quarterback. They create turnovers, and the Lions are third in the league with 11 interceptions. Their run defense is still a concern (ranked 30th), but interestingly, they lead the league in forcing three-and-outs, a statistic Schwartz clearly likes.
“The ability to get the ball back quickly for our offense is important,” he said. “We have an explosive offense, but we have big-play capability on defense too.”
No one would be goofy enough to guarantee a playoff berth. Not even me. Of course, the Lions were 6-2 in 2007 after blasting the Broncos, 44-7, and proceeded to finish 1-7, which laid the groundwork for 0-16. Other than still playing in Ford Field and wearing the same color scheme, these Lions bear no resemblance to those Lions.
Home losses to the 49ers and Falcons were eye-openers, and evidence a punishing ground game is something the Lions lack, and have trouble stopping. That could be an issue against tougher teams. But the Lions have proven they can win almost anywhere (Tampa, Dallas) and almost any way.
Officially, they’ve accomplished nothing so far, other than building an identity that a lot of people are noticing. It’s what playoff-worthy teams do, in case we’d forgotten.
bob.wojnowski@detnews.com
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Detroit Ndamukong Suh had a lot to say Monday.
But nothing said it better than this.
“If I’m not gonna protect myself,” the Lions all-Pro defensive tackle mused, “then nobody else is going to.”
That, as much as any statement — alleged or otherwise, heard or unspoken — might explain what he’s thinking these days, both on and off the field.
Because he’s being asked to wage a war on both fronts, no matter how understandably reluctant he is to admit it. When he’s not fighting opponents double teams in the trenches — and the cheap shots that inevitably come with them — he finds himself fighting, or at least being asked to fight, a perception that he’s a dirty player, fueled by postgame comments from the Falcons after a 23-16 loss at Ford Field.
Suh and teammate Cliff Avril were accused by Falcons players of taunting and trash-talking on the field when Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan went down what initially looked to be a serious leg injury in the game. (Ryan did return to the game the next series.)
Receiver Roddy White told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he “lost a whole lot of respect for” both players for “the (expletive) they were doing when Matt got hurt.”
The newspaper quoted White as saying Avril “was kicking (Ryan’s) feet saying, ‘Get him off the field.'”
Falcons center Todd McClure said Suh was saying, “‘Get the cart’ and several other things that I can’t repeat.”
Avril disputed those comments via Twitter on Sunday night, while Suh, who normally doesn’t address the media until Wednesday each week, angrily addressed them Monday.
“They’re gonna say what they want to say,” Suh said, adding “it’s he-said, she-said” as he quickly dismissed the suggestion — one that apparently was lost in translation by the initial report — that Avril actually kicked Ryan while he was down.
The video clearly shows he didn’t. (Avril and Suh are barely in the picture before and after Ryan goes down in a heap.)
And besides, as Suh points out, “I know for a fact, if Cliff — or anybody, for that matter — kicked an opposing quarterback, I’m sure there would’ve been a riot.”
“If that would’ve happened to Matt Stafford and he was on the ground and somebody kicked him,” Suh said, “I guarantee you all hell would’ve broke loose.”
Instead, we’re left with this, whatever the heck it is.
The Lions lost. The Falcons won. Atlanta players accused Detroit of ugly behavior, prompting the Lions to fire back with similar accusations. And we in the media become a ping-pong ball of sorts.
He said, she said? It’s more like, “Did you hear what they said about what you said?” (While conveniently ignoring the fact the hidden soundtrack of an NFL game would make Howard Stern cringe.)
“There was no comments — at all,” Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch said. “I was there when he went down. … We waved for the trainers to come get Matt. We never once made a threat like that to him at all.
“It’s absurd that they would even mention that.”
White, though, wasn’t backing down Monday as he clarified his remarks in an interview with the NFL Network.
“We didn’t say (Avril) kicked Matt,” White said. “We said one of the guys — I don’t know if it was 92 (Avril) or 93 (Kyle Vanden Bosch), one of the defensive ends — came over and he was making kicking gestures, like, ‘Get him out of here.’ And I know Suh said what he said. He was like, ‘Go get the cart for him. Get him out of here.’ He knows he said that.”
Suh was asked about what he said or didn’t say Monday, and he responded, “I’m not even near their quarterback, so how am I going to trash-talk somebody that has a medical staff that’s all around him?”
But he didn’t stop there, as Suh pointed out it wasn’t the Lions who made contact with Ryan on the play. It was his own lineman, Will Svitek, who stepped on Ryan’s ankle while trying to block the Lions defensive end Lawrence Jackson.
“If you look at it, to me, it’s karma,” Suh said, noting the Falcons own well-cultivated reputation for dirty play on the offensive line. “For all the bad stuff they’ve done in the past, their offensive lineman hurt their own quarterback. So I’ll leave it at that.”
White responded, “We’re not gonna go back and forth about ‘he-said, she-said,'” before doing just that, adding, “And then he’s gonna say it’s karma for what we’ve done in the past? And then their quarterback (Matthew Stafford) gets hurt on the last play of the game.”
Back to you, Mr. Suh, who was asked if he was hurt personally by the accusations.
“Do I need Rodney White’s respect?” Suh said, before answering himself. “No. I’ll leave it at that.”
At that point, he walked away, flanked by a Lions spokesman.
Now, I have no idea whether Suh purposely mispronounced White’s name or not as a parting gesture — I don’t think he did — or whether Suh knows where the Pistons former first-round pick is now. (Last I heard, he was hooping it up in South Korea.)
But as Suh himself rather bluntly reminded us Monday, we really don’t know him at all.
“Nobody’s gonna be able to really understand who I am, except for very few,” Suh said.
He went on to explain that’s because some people “won’t take the time” to, as he put it, “see the type of person I am.” Then, in the next breath, he admitted that’s because “they can’t get close enough to me. I won’t let people get close to me.”
So Suh me, but I don’t know how we’re going to solve that riddle if that’s the way he’s going to play this game.
Still, what I do know about Suh is that he’s smart, he’s focused, he’s determined and he’s potentially as dominant a player as we’ve ever seen at his position. And while it’d be foolish to think this talk will change his game — “Have you seen me stop playing? Not at all. It’s not gonna affect me,” he said — it’d be a shame if that talent got overshadowed by talk of dirty play, much as it has been with Pittsburgh’s James Harrison.
Talk is cheap. But reputations are invaluable.
john.niyo@detnews.com
twitter.com/JohnNiyo
Allen Park— Suuuuuhhhhh!
Get your vocal cords ready. Ndamukong Suh wants to hear you Monday night.
“One thing I really feed off is hearing my name out there,” Suh said Thursday. “Players may say they tune all that out, but when I make a play and hear my name, those things really feel good.”
Suh was in the midst of the din at Comerica Park for Game 3 of the American League Division Series this week, and he’s counting on a similar roof-raising decibel level at Ford Field on Monday against the Bears.
“Being at that Tigers game, that was a great example of feeling that atmosphere,” he said. “I was six rows up and being able to feel the crowd, that noise, I am definitely looking forward to the same type of thing. I really expect nothing less from the Monday night game. I am excited for it.”
Crowd noise, though, is generally proportionate to the quality of play on the field. As quarterback Matthew Stafford said, “We know this game is big for the city, but we also know we have to play well for it to be any kind of fun.”
Suh understands that, which makes him all the more anxious to get at it.
“Probably the most exciting thing about our team is that we have yet to play a perfect game,” he said. “We’ve played very mediocre. With that, there’s a lot of room to improve.”
Suh, an all-Pro and defensive rookie of the year last season, is off to what can be best described as a quietly effective start. He has 11 tackles and two sacks — far from the torrid pace he set last year when he had 10 sacks.
But, in the grand scheme of the defense, he and the rest of the line has keep steady pressure on quarterbacks and been at times overtly disruptive, other times subtly disruptive.
“Any competitive defensive lineman wants a lot of sacks and it’s unfortunate that we are down on our numbers, but we understand we’ve done some good things,” Suh said. “One way to measure us to see the things we’ve done in the backfield, causing pressure and making quarterbacks loft balls up that lead to interceptions. But by all means, we want to get back to sacking the quarterback.”
Bears quarterback Jay Cutler has been sacked 15 times, second behind Rams quarterback Sam Bradford (18).
Last year in the game at Ford Field, Suh was fined for hitting Cutler with excessive force outside the pocket. He was asked if such a hit might have some carry-over impact on Cutler’s psyche.
“I have no idea; you’d have to ask Jay Cutler about that,” Suh said. “That’s not my concern and it was not the reason for the hit. The reason to hit him hard is to create a play, get him to fumble.”
Suh said the thing he liked most about the defense has been its resiliency and adaptability. He has shown the same traits individually.
Teams are emptying the trick box to find some way to neutralize him, occasionally with some success.
They try to use his penetration against him, either with trap blocks inside, or chipping him with an offensive tackle.
“A lot of teams do that,” Lions coach Jim Schwartz said. “They keep a tight end in and bring a tackle down. But every time they keep a tight end in, it’s one less guy in the route.”
As for the trap blocks, that’s a systemic issue.
“We’re vulnerable to trap blocks,” Schwartz said. “You tell guys to get up field and rush the passer, they’re going to be susceptible to the trap. But our linebackers are expected to play that. We don’t want our guys slowing down and playing traps. Suh is an instinctive guy. He’s seen those things before. If we are getting off the line the way we are supposed to, our linebackers should fill those (gaps) up.”
Schwartz would caution against measuring Suh merely with statistics.
“The most impressive thing about him wouldn’t be impressive to other people,” Schwartz said. “But it’s that he’s always in on the play, and it’s because he has great instincts, great balance and he’s so strong.”
He’s so strong, in fact, that even when he’s blocked well, Suh manages to, at the very least, hold his gap most times.
“The great way our defense is set up, when I get penetration, I am doing my job,” Suh said. “Even if they knock me off course — whether they are trapping me from the inside-out, or doing a wham block from the outside-in — a lot of times I withstand those blows and stay in my gap and get my job done.”
For a guy who grew up in Portland, Ore., and played at Nebraska, Suh seems to have a grasp of the magnitude of a Bears-Lions game, especially one played on the big stage of Monday.
“These were the two top teams in the north back in the day,” he said. “I kind of consider this like going back to the Big 12 — which doesn’t exist any more — and the Oklahoma-Nebraska rivalry. I look at it the same way. The Bears are definitely a team we want to get after. They are in our division and they beat us twice last year, and they have a great team.
“For me during big game weeks, I am a little more quiet. I want to make sure I am calm. When it’s the right time and I am on the football field, then I unleash it. This is going to be a great challenge and I am ready.”
Kickoff: 8:30 p.m. Monday, Ford Field, Detroit
TV/radio: ESPN/WXYT
Line: Lions by 51/2
Records: Bears 2-2,Lions 4-0
Series: Bears lead 91-64-5 (Chicago 24-20, Dec. 5, 2010)
Did you know?: The last “Monday Night Football” appearance for the Lions was Oct. 8, 2001, against the Rams, who won 35-0.
chris.mccosky@detnews.com
twitter.com/cmccosky
Allen Park — Of all the steps the Lions have taken, this might be the most telling: Good enough isn’t necessarily good enough, not when better is possible.
That’s what they’re saying and that’s what we’re seeing, so far. The Lions are 1-0 after their 27-20 victory at Tampa Bay, but still moderately annoyed they let the Buccaneers hang around. Now they’re getting ready for a sold-out home opener against the 0-1 Chiefs, who were thoroughly awful in a 41-7 loss to the Bills.
The Lions’ evolution continues, and this week’s shocking revelation is, we actually have to ask if they might take an opponent lightly. Of course, they can’t. This is still the NFL, and the Chiefs still are close to the 10-6 team that made the playoffs last year. The Lions adamantly confirmed Wednesday it’d be ridiculous to overlook the Chiefs.
Slowly, it’s getting safer to trust the Lions. I mean, since starting 2-10 last season, the Lions have won five consecutive real games (nine straight if you count the exhibitions!). Frankly, they should be annoyed they didn’t beat the Buccaneers worse. But it’s encouraging to know the heart of the team, that menacing defensive line, could shut down Tampa Bay’s run game and harass quarterback Josh Freeman and not be overly pleased.
“I think we only got one sack, and that’s unacceptable,” defensive tackle Corey Williams said. “We didn’t get him on the ground nearly as many times as we’d planned. That ain’t like us. This week, we got another challenge to stop the run, but hopefully, we get the quarterback down.”
I consider this progress, because listening to the Lions defensive linemen, they aren’t kidding about their intentions. The Lions actually sacked Freeman twice, but Kyle Vanden Bosch was the only lineman to get one. The other was by new linebacker Stephen Tulloch, an excellent addition.
Ndamukong Suh just missed. Cliff Avril just missed. Coach Jim Schwartz had no major complaints about the line because Freeman often was on the run and the Buccaneers rushed for only 56 yards. That’s a good sign, with the Chiefs bringing what was the NFL’s No. 1 rushing attack last season, led by Jamaal Charles.
Quarterback Matt Cassel doesn’t mind letting Charles and Thomas Jones do the work. But if you think the Lions are content with tidy low-sack success, you don’t fully understand their mentality.
“Is it enough? Not enough, but we’ll definitely take the win,” Suh said. “I think we affected the quarterback, we hit him, we were in his face. But ultimately, we want to get the quarterback down. Are we happy we still were effective? Yes. Are we satisfied? No.”
Opponents will try all sorts of ways to slow the pass rush. One tactic seems simple to me: If you run the ball, you don’t have to throw it as much. The Chiefs can run the ball, and stopping that will be the main concern for the Lions.
The Lions deep defensive-line rotation — eight guys filling four spots — spawns great competition. Avril admits there’s a fierce debate to see who leads the team in sacks, and that’s fine with Schwartz, as long as everyone recognizes there are other ways to dominate.
“In the world of fantasy football, it’s no longer, did you win?” Schwartz said. “It’s, are your stats good enough? We played very well up front. As long as we’re effective, numbers really don’t matter. We can play better, but let’s not judge it strictly by sack numbers.”
Told that Suh wasn’t ecstatic with his one-tackle, no-sack performance, the coach shrugged.
“Like the rest of us, he has very high standards for himself,” Schwartz said. “He knows how hard sacks are to get. In this league, they don’t just give them to you for free.”
In this league, if you hit the quarterback, you get paid. Suh was the NFL defensive rookie of the year last season and led the Lions with 10 sacks. Avril had 8.5 and Lawrence Jackson six.
The Lions are intent on creating havoc, even without their top pick, injured tackle Nick Fairley. Still, sustaining success isn’t easy, especially with this winning thing all new to the Lions. They’re 8-point favorites Sunday, and near as anyone can tell, it’s their biggest spread since they were nine-point favorites in the 2000 finale against the Bears, a crushing 23-20 loss.
“To me, it’s not new,” said Suh, who won at Nebraska. “I expect every year to play in big games and play for big prizes, like the Super Bowl. I feel the mind-set is very reciprocal around this locker room. (The Chiefs) are gonna come in hungry.
“I don’t think you need to tell somebody not to take a team lightly. Anybody can win in this league.”
The Lions defied that notion for a long time. On the rare occasions they were just good enough to win, hey, it was good enough. Not now, not when they’re rising from sad sack to sack-happy, not when being really good actually is realistic.
bob.wojnowski@detnews.com
twitter.com/bobwojnowski