Ndamukong Suh was just suspended two games for the stomp heard 'round the country on Thanksgiving afternoon, and now he is being perceived as a villainous athlete in a violent sport.
Suh is only the third player to be suspended for an on-the-field incident, with the last being one Albert Haynesworth. Now, many NFL fans recall Haynesworth (when he was still, you know, a good player) stepping on the face of Dallas Cowboys lineman Andre Gurode. Haynesworth received a five-game suspension because, after all, he stepped on a guy's face with 300-plus pounds of leverage and a spiked cleat. That is more egregious than what Suh did, but if you look back at the incidents and what happened shortly after each act of vulgarity, there are subtle differences.
One, Haynesworth was in Tennessee at the time and was playing under longtime head coach Jeff Fisher. Just moments after Haynesworth did his best karate imitation, Fisher was in Haynesworth's face, persecuting one of his best players in front of fans and multiple cameras for doing something stupid. It was a selfless act and Fisher made sure he knew about it.
Flash back to last Thursday, Lions coach Jim Schwartz (who coincidentally was Haynesworth's defensive coordinator on the Titans) seemed to subdue himself and let Suh do all the talking after he was ejected. Schwartz had a quizzical look on his face, as if he didn't know how to handle the situation. I'm knocking him; rather, I would have liked to see the head coach be the head coach and tell Suh to shut up because it cost his team. He should have pretended Suh was Jim Harbaugh.
To go even further, each player's method of contrition was quite different.
Haynesworth did not defend his actions, almost instantly apologizing after the game against the Cowboys. It was a moment of sincerity from one player towards another, but the same can not really said about Suh.
The Lions' defensive tackle argued with Schwartz on the sideline, then proceeded to go into his own soliloquy when speaking to reporters. Suh said something along the lines of just trying to get off the turf and being held, but his explanation simply does not match with what millions of people saw on the field at that moment. Suh's unapologetic attitude was not welcomed nicely by the media and the league office, not to mention some of his teammates.
The actions of both Haynesworth and Suh are different and the same, with one player (Haynesworth) committing a more heinous act but being more contrite in his apologies. It also didn't help Suh's cause that he has been flagged for nine personal fouls in less than two full seasons and just met with commissioner Roger Goodell on the Lions' bye week to discuss the rules and regulations of the NFL.
Suh will learn from this. Actually, he has to learn from it in order to be on the field with his teammates. He wants to win and he wants to be there for his teammates, and he can't do either of those things when he is watching games at home while not wearing a uniform.
