Detroit Lions defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh is known as a dirty player. A stigma that Suh wishes he could drop and knows people have solely because they haven’t gotten to know him.
When asked about his Thanksgiving Day kick to the groin of Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub, Suh made it clear that he would never do such a think intentionally.
Per the Houston Chronicle: “People kind of had their minds made up already,” he said. “I would never want to kick someone in that area.”
“I wish people took the time to get to know me,” Suh then added.
In fairness, after Suh’s stomp of Packers lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith last Thanksgiving, it’s kind of hard to really not look at Suh as a dirty player. There’s really only one way for Suh to leave that stigma behind.
He has to have a whole season of keeping out of the news for anything other than his play. Lately, it seems I hear less about Suh’s sacks or tackles, and much more about how dirty he is.
He has nobody to blame but himself but if he genuinely wants to convince people that he isn’t dirty, that is the first step.