Writer: Suh-Lions divide started with stomp

A lot of fans probably suspected this for a long time.

But there never was a chance that Ndamukong Suh would return to the Detroit Lions, former Freeper Thomas George wrote at sbnation.com, and the divide started with the infamous Stomp Game against the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving 2011.

Suh had left Ford Field after being ejected for stomping on the arm of Packers offensive linemen Evan Dietrich-Smith, but the Lions called him and told him to return to face the media. His "Who, Me?" responses added to the backlash against him.

In the wake of Suh's signing with the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday, George writes: "His team of advisers believed the Lions did not help him enough to prepare for that. Suh and his team were angry that the Lions forced him to immediately do it. Suh and his group learned to live with it — but never forgot it."

George also quoted an unnamed Lions "management source" about Suh: "Obviously, a great player, a guy who does the things he is supposed to do, who stays in shape, practices hard, plays hard.

"But he is a guy who has his ideas on how things should be done. And when he starts down that road, some immaturities come out. In spite of how smart he thinks he is, sometimes the immaturity comes out."

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Here are a few more items as the dust settles from the Suh departure:

• How big is the Suh signing for the Dolphins?

"Now, at least, the Dolphins are the greatest at something," Greg Cote writes in the Miami Herald. "Now, at least, they have that one special player every other team in the league would love to have.

"Suh is this club's biggest, most important free agent defensive signing in franchise history."

But fans don't seem that excited yet.

In the very early going of a Herald reader poll, more than 60% of the respondents say the signing makes their expectations of the Dolphins just "Fairly high: Make the playoffs."

Only about 11% say they'll win the division and 4% say they're a threat to make the Super Bowl.

Is making the playoffs worth $114 million? Read on:

• It's kind of the reverse of the Curse of Bobby Layne, which the Lions got by getting rid of the star quarterback back in the day.

Benjamin Morris writes at fivethirtyeight.com that the Dolphins now risk the "Winners Curse," which comes with winning a bidding war for a big free agent such as Suh.

"While big-time free agent signings are exciting, they don't often end well," Morris writes. "Players frequently regress to the mean or turn out to be less valuable in new circumstances. But even if Suh turns out to be as good in Miami as he has seemed to be in Detroit — which is far from certain — it's unclear whether this could ever be a good deal for the Dolphins. With both a hard salary cap and salary floor, an NFL team doesn't win by paying players exactly what they're worth — it wins by paying them far less than they're worth. ...

"The Dolphins weren't much more 'in need' of an all-pro defensive tackle than most teams, but their bid 'far exceeded' that of others."

Morris says the key red flag in Suh's $114-million deal is the $60 million guaranteed, which he says is 42% of the 2015 salary cap. And it's hard to get that much money's worth out of one player.

By comparison, Morris said the richest nonquarterback signing of the past four years was defensive end Mario Williams' guaranteed $31.4 million with the Buffalo Bills. It was just 26% of the cap, Morris says, and has been worth one more win per season.

Did we tell you there'd be math?

• But it wasn't all about the money, Suh said Wednesday.

Then again, he also admitted it didn't hurt that he doesn't have to pay a Florida state income tax on his $114 million.

"Like Mr. Ross said, I am a very smart person in the fact that I look at everything around in my life," Suh said. "I'm not going to lie, it was a consideration."

Hey, if Michigan does end tax credits for filmmakers, maybe it should consider giving a break to big-bucks sports free agents.

Nah.

• Despite the monster deal, Suh's father, Michael, assured the Florida media that is son "is not a monster."

Yes, Suh's family was there Wednesday to tell people not to believe that "dirty player" stuff about him.

"It's an easy label. It's a lazy label," his sister, Ngum Suh, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Dad agreed: "It's just a label that somebody just (placed on him), and the fans, they don't know how to let go.

"Meet him on the street, talk to him and see what kind of a person he is, if he's somebody that is going to knock you on your ass, on your head."

No, thanks.

Contact Steve Schrader: sschrader@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @schradz.