After a surprising victory on Sunday all the talk around Detroit should be about how the Lions were able to counter every spectacular score by Adrian Peterson with one of their own; instead the talk, as it so often seems to be, will be focused on a dirty hit made by Ndamukong Suh.
Only days after saying that he would be focused on committing significantly less silly penalties Suh dove at the knees of Vikings center John Sullivan during an interception return earning himself a 15-yard penalty and negating a touchdown, according to ESPN.
"I wasn't by any means going for his knees," Suh told reporters after the game. "He knows that. We had a great conversation running out at halftime, and he understood. My aim was his waist to cut him off."
At the time of the hit Sullivan was significantly behind the play and had zero chance of catching up to DeAndre Levy as he ran toward the end zone. Vikings defensive end Jared Allen took exception to the hit.
"[Suh] is a good dude, but that's uncalled for," Allen told reporters. "This is a fraternity. In the NFL, you try to take care of guys. Things happen, and guys are going to make hits. But you can't take a dude's legs out from behind on an interception return down the field."
Vikings coach Leslie Frazier also thought that the hit was uncalled for.
"Nobody that that was a good play," Frazier told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "The fact that they got a penalty because of it tells you it wasn't a good play. You hate to see guys go low on players. We've seen the results of it. It's not a good thing when it happens."
This is far from the first time that Suh's play has been the subject of controversy. Suh has been voted the league's dirtiest player twice in a poll of NFL players by the Sporting News. On Thanksgiving day in 2011 Suh was ejected for stomping on the arm of Packers lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith, he would also end up being fined from the league office and suspended for two games, according to the Detroit Free Press.
