Message Received, Mr. Suh

This week Ndamukong Suh of the Detroit Lions was fined $20,000 by the NFL for a play involving Cincinnati’s rookie quarterback Andy Dalton.  This is no real surprise due to the league’s emphasis on protecting the marquee players at the quarterback position, and I won’t try to rationalize this particular play as “tough” or “hard-nosed” or anything like that.  It was a potentially dangerous play that could have injured Dalton.  Everyone was lucky in this case.  Having said all that, I don’t believe anyone should be up in arms about it.  This is nothing more than a message sent by one of the league’s bright young defensive stars.  That message: nobody’s going to be pushing the Lions around anymore.