'My goal was always to come back'

On Saturday mornings for most of the last five years, before every home game, Ndamukong Suh usually found himself at a back corner table in the Rugby Grille at the Townsend Hotel, not too far from his Birmingham home.

Table 74 was his sanctuary after a morning walk-through, where he gathered with his family or friends or business associates — whoever was in town — and had a croissant sandwich with eggs and bacon, a side of fruit and a heaping order of French toast while he decompressed from the week.

On Saturday nights, after the Lions checked into their team hotel in downtown Detroit, Suh always made his way to Roast in the Westin Book Cadillac, ordered a steak, well done, with a side of spinach and feta cheese.

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He was such a regular at Roast that the restaurant saved him a table in back, and one of the waitresses made sure the stuffed peppers he liked were always in the kitchen.

And he spent so much time at the Townsend that it wasn't unusual for regulars to come over and say hi, like developer Keith Pomeroy did Friday as Suh ate one final, for now, breakfast at the swanky hotel.

"Good to see you. Congratulations. Sorry to interrupt," Pomeroy said as he handed Suh's confidant and financial advisor Matt Hickey a promotional card for a charity event he's hosting later this spring. "If you can make it, please save the date. And even though you're still leaving us, you're still a hometown hero."

Two days after signing the richest contract for a defensive player in NFL history, Suh was back in Detroit tying up loose ends from his five seasons as a Lion. He signed a six-year, $114-million deal with the Miami Dolphins on Wednesday that's guaranteed to pay him a whopping $60 million over the next three years.

Suh is happy to be a Dolphin; who wouldn't be for that kind of money?

But while debate rages on over whether the Lions did enough to keep the best defensive tackle in the NFL, Suh said suggestions he never intended to re-sign with the team that took him second overall in the 2010 draft out of Nebraska couldn't be further from the truth.

"There is no question that it's a huge misconception that I didn't want to be here," Suh told the Free Press in an exclusive interview. "I've always wanted to be here, especially growing up (as a person) here, being drafted here and having such a huge warm welcome. I think anybody would be crazy not to want to be at a place that they're superly embraced. There's tons of people in this community that I have gotten to know over time that to me, one, I've created mentors here, people from the business world that have just reached out and wanting to make sure that I'm doing the right things. So for me it was not an easy decision by any means."

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The Lions, one of a handful of teams that pursued the 28-year-old three-time all-pro in free agency, made Suh a competitive offer to try to keep him in Detroit, but their bid of six years and $102 million with $58 million guaranteed came late in the negotiating process and couldn't match Miami's deal in terms of money or structure.

"I don't have anything negative to say about Ndamukong Suh," Lions president Tom Lewand said. "We made an extremely substantial offer, an offer to make him the highest-paid defensive player in the league. It stretched where we were from a planning standpoint, and in the salary-cap era you have to make tough decisions.

"We stretched in a very significant way to try and accommodate him, as well as a lot of other guys on the roster, and obviously he had another option that he thought was better. And he made his decision and both parties are going to move on positively, and as I said we wish him the best and we're going to focus on making our team better and moving forward to reach our goals."

Suh's agent, Jimmy Sexton, declined to comment for this story, but Suh said, money aside, his final decision "was a very difficult one" because of his ties to the team and area.

"For me, my goal was always to come back," Suh said. "I was never looking to want to leave and figure out a different situation. But at the end of the day, I have to do what's best for myself and for my family because at the end of the day, those are people I have to look in the eyes each and every single day for the rest of my life and know I made the right decision for us as a whole and for my future and my future kids, my wife, that I'll eventually hopefully have soon."

One of the Lions' most private players during his five seasons, Suh shed some light during a 25-minute interview Friday on a process that he said wasn't finalized until last weekend and included a phone call from Lions owner Martha Ford after the team decided not to use the franchise tag on him two weeks ago Monday. The franchise tag would have led to a one-year, $26.9-million salary.

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"I thought at every single point through the process that I was going to be in Detroit," Suh said. "Even after they didn't do the franchise tag and I spoke to Mrs. Ford after that piece, I still felt just a great, great chance of me still being in Detroit. So, it wasn't until really, really late, late in the process is where I was like, 'Wow, I got to, I actually got to start thinking outside of Detroit.' "

Suh said Ford wasn't necessarily trying to convince him to stay during their call, that "it was just a good conversation."

"She obviously said she would for sure miss me if I left and whatnot, and her cheering section in her exact words," Suh said. "But it was just a good conversation just to kind of catch up and we just kind had some dialogue from there.

"It was definitely meaningful that she reached out to me. She didn't have to, by any means. She's the owner and she can do kind of whatever she wants. So I definitely appreciated it. Like I said, it was just a good, cordial conversation."

Although Suh said he long thought he'd stay a Lion, the possibility he would play elsewhere in 2015 was evident for more than a year.

The Lions started contract negotiations with Sexton last spring, after Suh changed agents following the 2013 season.

Suh told people in the organization around that time that he wanted to be the NFL's highest-paid defensive player, and when it became apparent there was a financial divide between the two sides, Suh said the Lions tabled contract talks until after the season.

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This winter, the Lions had intermittent negotiations with Sexton leading up to the March 2nd franchise tag deadline, and Lewand, general manager Martin Mayhew and others expressed optimism all along that a deal would get done.

Lewand said that optimism was well-founded. Suh told the Lions that he wanted to stay and that he liked his coaches, the scheme and the team's chances of staying competitive. The Lions finished 11-5 last season.

But asked whether he thought Suh was genuine in telling the team he wanted to stay, Lewand said "it doesn't make any difference at this point."

"He obviously accepted the deal in Miami that was for significantly more money than what we were offering, which again was to make him the highest-paid defensive player in the league, and he made the decision that he made and we wish him the best of luck and we're moving on," Lewand said. "But to go back and try and interpret things that were said throughout the process is counterproductive at this point."

While Sexton handled the negotiations, Suh, who referred questions to his agent with a familiar "Ask Jimmy" refrain during the season, said he was "100% in the involvement" in talks and stayed in regular contact with the Lions about where things stood once he started fielding offers from other teams.

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"When I said the comment in December or whatever (that) Jimmy's going to make the decision for me, without question Jimmy's going to have a heavy input into it," Suh said. "He's my agent, he's in every single negotiation, talking to every single team, speaking to the Lions, I mean, to the 11th hour, 12th hour, whatever you want to say.

"But for me as a person and how I am, I am not a prima donna, I am not a guy that goes out there and lets people walk his dog for him if I had a dog, or do things like that. I'm grown, I'm a big kid, I can go and do this myself, and at the end of the day I have to take credit and I have to take the heat of the decisions I make in my life, so why as a human being and as a young man not have good counsel and a solid group of people around you to help make the decision? But at the end of the day it's your decision."

Along with Sexton, Hickey and family members, including his older sister Ngum, Suh said he sought advice on the process from four associates — "We called them the dominoes," he said — in making what he called "one of the biggest decisions of my life."

Miami, for many reasons both football and financial, turned out to be the choice, and before Suh decided to go to the Dolphins he said he consulted with "two very prominent people in this state" about his decision.

"(They) kind of signed off on me giving me approval that I'm making the right decision for my future and for my family, which honestly meant a lot because I know they're 100% biased and wanted me to stay here," Suh said, declining to identify the people. "If I said who they were, you would easily know who they are. I don't want to share it. To me it was very, very important to go through the process the right way and go through a very and extensive deep dive on one, staying here, and then also obviously it got to a point to where I realized there wasn't going to be able to be an opportunity to stay here.

"There's a lot of factors that went into that, but I don't care to put them out because at the end of the day I'm excited to where I'm going to be and to where I'm going to go."

The Dolphins went 8-8 last season, finished third in the AFC East, and have not made the playoffs since 2008, but Suh will be the centerpiece of a promising defense that includes pass rushers Cameron Wake and Olivier Vernon and cornerback Brent Grimes.

Suh said he hit it off with Dolphins coach Joe Philbin and owner Stephen Ross, a Detroit native and the biggest donor to the Michigan athletic department, when he visited Miami early this past week, but Suh said he always would cherish the relationships he had in the Lions' organization.

Defensive end Ziggy Ansah is one of Suh's closest friends, defensive tackle Caraun Reid one of his workout partners, he's close with coaches Kris Kocurek, Jim Washburn and Gunther Cunningham, and said the bond he built with head coach Jim Caldwell over the last year "was a huge, huge reason why it was very, very tough for me to leave."

"When I say (I felt) embraced," Suh said, "I'm talking about from the fans, I'm talking about from my teammates, I'm talking about from the excellent coaching staff that I was there with, with Coach (Jim) Schwartz, which at times people thought we had a terrible relationship and that wasn't the case. I just texted him yesterday. He texted me through the whole process, 'Let me know if you need something,' all these different things.

"So people have misunderstandings and everybody tried to write these reports right when he left that, 'Oh, Suh was one of the reasons why he had to leave and all these different things.' It's like, 'No, I wanted Coach Schwartz to stay here.' It's not my decision. It's not my choice. He's the one who drafted me here.

"Granted, change is good and you move with change and you understand it, and Coach Caldwell came in and I embraced him and I had an excellent relationship and it was tough to leave him knowing how he runs a program and does different things.

"But after sitting with Coach Philbin and having an opportunity to sit with him and seeing how small this world is, especially in the coaching community, we have so many common people like James Dobson who's at Vanderbilt now." He was Suh's strength coach at Nebraska and worked with Philbin for four seasons at Iowa. "There's so many different people that the community is so small, it's like you're going from one father figure to the next father figure and that's the way it is."

Suh wanted what the Lions couldn't give him

Lewand said Suh was "a great player" and "did some solid things in our community and we expect to have a positive relationship with him going forward."

Similarly, Suh said he was going from one franchise to the next but not necessarily leaving the city behind.

In Detroit, he has a myriad of business interests including real estate and other ventures, and one of his most trusted mentors in business is from the area.

"There's lots of things that I have reason to be back here for and lots of people that I want to come back and see and enjoy time with," Suh said. "I've got friends, family members in my eyes, that I'll be back in town and around for. For me, this is a part of who I am.

"Unfortunately, I had to leave Portland to go to college. I was in the middle of the country and enjoyed that, then I moved a little further east coming to Detroit and I still go back to Nebraska all the time, one for business, one to see people, be close to my university. And I see it no different for me coming back here and being close to this city and being close to this organization. I still have friends that are on the team, train with some of the guys right now. And Coach Caldwell, him alone, I feel like we have a great, great relationship outside of football."

Suh, whose complex legacy as a Lion includes a defensive rookie of the year award in 2010, two playoff appearances, one suspension, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and 36 sacks in what is trending toward a Hall of Fame career, said had circumstances been different he might have stayed in Detroit.

"The circumstances of what's fair for both sides and where both sides were happy and at the end of the day I don't think both sides would have been happy here to where we ended up," Suh said. "It's unfortunate, but it's a part of life and you have to grow up and move on. It's like everybody doesn't want to leave college 'cause college is so much fun and so easy and you don't have bills and you don't have things you have to worry about, but it's a part of growing up and you got to grow up and continue to move forward and be the best person you can be."

As for those breakfasts at the Townsend and dinners at Roast, Suh said there would be more.

PDF of Suh's Lions career by the numbers

Not tomorrow, when he'll be off on another personal adventure, and not in the fall, when he'll settle into a new routine at one or two fine-dining establishments in South Florida, but when he's back for business or other reasons that he said always would bring him back to Michigan.

"I envision (my relationship with the city being) no different than what it was when I was here, if not more in a lot of different aspects, especially from the business side of the world," Suh said. "I don't see it changing much. It hasn't changed at Nebraska, it hasn't changed in Portland, so why would it change here?

"I spent five years here. That's not a small amount of time. It's not like I was here for two months and I just up and left. Those were my first adult years, even though you can say your adult years in college, but I didn't have bills in college. The University of Nebraska football program took care of that for me. So I definitely, my young adult years were here and (will always be a part of me) without question."