To the great surprise of most, Detroit Lion defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh won his appeal over his latest stomp of an opposing player. He will, after all, be allowed to participate in the Lions' playoff game this weekend against the Dallas Cowboys.
To the great surprise of absolutely nobody, the Lions and their fans are pleased with the outcome. After all, he's one of their own and they'll forever stand behind their behemoth even if he "slips up" here and there. NFL football is a tough game and boys will be boys, they say.
It's also no great surprise that the attitude of football fans elsewhere around the country contrasts sharply with the view held in Detroit. Suh's a thug, the dirtiest player in the game, and unworthy of wearing a uniform for ANY team. Forget the suspension. Bring on the tar and feathers and send him back into whatever evil hole he crawled out of, countless others maintain.
To date, it hasn't been made public who the arbitrator was that overturned Suh's suspension, but it will come out eventually.
Nevertheless, it is what it is. Instead of being suspended for the playoff game, Suh was reinstated and fined $70,000. Sound like a lot of money, right? It is and it isn't.
Suh's salary cap hit for this season with the Lions was over $22,000,000. Fining him $70,000 represents a mere three tenths of one percent of his salary. In high level professional athletic circles, this is known as chump change.
Looked at another way, let's say one had a pretty decent job making $50,000 a year, and that person had a history of physical abuse in the workplace. He had been given time off without pay and had deductions withheld from his check in the past for such behavior, but was considered very good at his job -- at least by his own employers. And now he just "acted up" again.
What would it cost him? A mere hundred and fifty bucks and no time off. A nuisance, but again, basically chump change. Yet ironically, by being allowed to stay on the job, that employee just qualified for a bonus. This is called a playoff check in the NFL world. Cha-ching.
So if you were that employee just what, pray tell, would deter you from continuing your not-so-good old ways in the future? Want to slug, take out the knees, wring the neck, stomp, or otherwise wreak havoc on a competing employee when he pisses you off? Have at it. Cost ya $150. And there might even wind up being a bonus in it for you.
This is the world Ndamukong Suh lives in. No apologies, no remorse, evidently no conscience or moral compass, and certainly never owning up to one's own abusive behavior, though the evidence has been overwhelming.
Just keep trucking on and throwing out some chump change once in a while to make these little problems disappear. They never happened -- at least in his own mind.
And I for one not only find that offensive and egregious, but downright scary. Left to his own ways, it's likely only a matter of time before Suh causes a career and/or life threatening injury to an opposing player.
Hopefully that never happens. But if it does, no objective person can say the red flags and warning signs weren't there all along.
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