Warren Sapp for all his chatter as an analyst, was one hell of a defensive tackle.
Sapp is a likely Hall of Famer at some point, and knows how to play defensive tackle.
NFL.com is reporting that Sapp lit into Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh on “The Jim Rome Show” Thursday, and his biggest complaint was regarding Suh not getting better as a player.
“When I sit down and watch the tape, get inside of it, he plays the game with no awareness and just a blindness that I’ve never seen from a guy with that kind of ability and talent.”
“He’s just wasting it. Then you see him make two, three plays a game, and outside of him kicking (Matt Schaub) in the groin, when did he make another play?”
Sapp was then asked by Rome to explain what he meant by lack of awareness.
“Too many times I watch this young man put blinders on and he’s just after the quarterback. They’re not going to let you go to the quarterback free, son,” Sapp said. “You’re not that good of a pass rusher, so realize it’s a screen, turn, and go to the ball and help your team.”
Sapp didn’t let up even after those remarks and chided Suh on not developing as a player.
“When he hit this league, he was good,” Sapp said. “When you talk about 10 sacks, he was real disruptive, but his game hasn’t changed. He hasn’t evolved. He hasn’t evolved as a pass rusher, he hasn’t evolved where he can play both sides and become disruptive, where now a team has to do only certain plays.
“When you played me, (Derrick) Brooks and (John) Lynch, you could only run certain plays because you knew I was going to do certain things. Therefore, a lot of things get eliminated. This young man here plays this, ‘I’m-stronger-than-you,’ beat-the-lineman-down (game) … no! I mean, ugh.”