Ndamukong Suh will not be suspended for hit on Matt Schaub

November 25, 2012

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Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh will be in uniform for his team’s game Sunday versus Indianapolis.(Photo: Rick Osentoski, AP)

Story Highlights

The NFL announced it will not suspend the Lions defensive tackle
Suh may still be fined for kicking Schaub in the groin

7:05PM EST November 26. 2012 – Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh will not be suspended for kicking Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub in the groin in last week’s 34-31 overtime loss.

POLICE REPORT: NFL player choked taxi driver ^[1]

NFL senior vice president of communications Greg Aiello tweeted today that the league notified the Lions that Suh will not be suspended but that the play “will be reviewed for a potential fine.”

Suh’s foot hit Schaub in the groin ^[2] as Suh was spun to the ground after a first-quarter pass rush.Suh was not penalized on the play, and the league could not say for certain his actions were intentional.

In a radio interview before the decision not to suspend Suh was announced Monday, Schaub said he wouldn’t want Suh as a teammate ^[3].

“No, you don’t want a player like that,” Schaub told Houston’s 610 AM. “The stuff that he stands for and the type of player he is, that’s not Houston Texan worthy. That’s not what we’re about as a football team, as individuals, as collectively as a group. We’re not that type of person.”

Suh has not spoken publicly about the incident — he wasn’t available for comment after Thursday’s game — but he’s no stranger to scrutiny of his play.

Twice named the NFL’s Dirtiest Player in an anonymous Sporting News player poll, Suh has been fined at least four times in his three-year career, and he was suspended for two games without pay for stomping on the arm of Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith last Thanksgiving.

As a rookie, Suh was fined three times, twice for hits on quarterbacks Jake Delhomme ($7,500) and Jay Cutler ($15,000) and once for using an opponent as leverage on an attempted field-goal block. Last year, he was fined for a preseason hit on Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton ($20,000).

This year, Suh has been flagged just onmce, for encroachment in a Week 2 loss to the 49ers. Indianapolis Colts coach Bruce Arians came to his defense yesterday.

“I don’t see how you could aim with your face down, and roll over and kick somebody,” Arians said. “I’m not into all of that. That’s for the commissioner to decide. I know he’s a heck of a football player.”

In an interview in the upcoming issue of ESPN The Magazine, Suh said he’s “a better player” now than he was before the stomp.

“I have a greater awareness now of how people look at you,” he said. “Since that incident on Thanksgiving, there are a million cameras on me, so I have to understand that everything I do is being watched. I will always have to deal with that. But you can’t worry about it. My job is to defeat the guy in front of me, do it until he quits and then wait for them to send in the next guy.”

Along with his kick, Suh drew the ire of some Texans for a second-quarter takedown of Schaub when he grabbed the quarterback near the collar and bent him awkwardly to the ground.

In his ESPN interview, Suh said he’s learned how to channel his aggression in productive ways on the field for “many reasons.”

“One is I went through that situation last Thanksgiving,” he said. “But also, any man, any child, grows up. You learn from your mistakes or you go backward. I’m the kind of person who wants to move forward. My fire is still there. And when I get a full opportunity to unleash my fire, it’s like the hit I put on Cutler (this year).

“By no means am I trying to hurt him, but I am going 100 m.p.h. and trying to get him as quickly and as hard down to the ground as possible. That’s the way I show my dominance, and I am going to continue to do that. If that situation happens again with Cutler, I’m gonna hit him the same way, if not harder.”

Dave Birkett is a writer for the Detroit Free Press.