DETROIT -- Somewhere on an interstate between Florida and Michigan, one of the biggest, baddest athletes in Detroit history flipped on his radio Sunday for the Lions game. And Bill Laimbeer smiled. There is this brute of a man playing on the defensive line for Detroit now, and in some ways, he reminds Laimbeer of himself.

They say that Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh plays dirty; Laimbeer says he plays hard. They fine Suh and tell him he needs to stop being so reckless; Laimbeer, the antagonistic heart and soul of the Detroit Pistons' "Bad Boys" championship teams from two decades ago, says the enterprising young lad is simply doing his part to shape the culture of Detroit Lions football.

"Not everybody can be the pretty boys," Laimbeer said.

"I think that Detroit has always been put down for the longest time, especially for the last 20-25 years. They need to have that chip on their shoulder. They need to represent a hardworking city that gets beat on and say, 'Hey, we're not going to take any crap from anybody. We're going to take what we want.'"

OK, so perhaps Laimbeer isn't the most objective authority on etiquette in sports. He is the man who once posed for Sports Illustrated, hands over his head and mouth agape, with the headline that read, "What Foul?" But he's an expert on Detroit and for years was a long-suffering Lions season-ticket holder, post-Barry Sanders and pre-0-16. He knows exactly what this city, built with rivets and sweat, needed. It needed attitude again.

It was there Sunday, on a magical afternoon, against the 2010 AFC West champion Kansas City Chiefs. There was one second left on the clock in the first half, and both teams were ready to head to the locker room. Not Suh. He hunted Chiefs QB Matt Cassel down, smashed him to the ground, and grinned as his face showed up on the JumboTron. He took what he wanted.

Just after 4 o'clock that day, when the final score read 48-3, a football-forlorn city was brimming with hope. A crowd gathered outside the Lions' locker room. Celebrities lingered, long after the boys dumped Gatorade on their defensive coordinator. Something had changed, and Kid Rock and Bob Seger felt it as they stood outside the locker room like the groupies that follow them. The double doors opened, a security guard whisked them in, and 10 minutes later, Seger emerged with an autographed football and what appeared to be a tear streaming down his face.

"We're on our way now!" the aging rocker said.

"It's great, isn't it?"

No, it is never too early to get excited about an undefeated start in Detroit, even after Week 2. Suh stood in the corner of the locker room and quietly dressed into a plaid shirt and jeans, taking some of it in. Then he left, with rap music thumping in the background and the city eagerly waiting for what's next.

Youth being served

He is only 24 years old. The Lions have to remind themselves of that sometimes, that it was just 17 months ago that they drafted the 6-foot-4, 307-pound defensive tackle from Nebraska with the second overall pick.

The new face of Detroit football is frequently seen with a determined scowl. Andrew Weber/US Presswire

Veteran defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch, who came to Detroit around the same time Suh did last year, marveled over it, how the rookie was not intimidated by anything. How he immediately fit in.

"He looked," Vanden Bosch said, "like he'd been in the NFL for years."

If a phone call from Detroit was a death sentence pre-2011, you wouldn't know it judging by Suh's reaction on draft day. He wanted to be here, in a place that appreciated hard work and attitude. It reminded him of somewhere very familiar.

Here's what you need to know about how Suh spent his lockout: He had a vast array of places to train, and tens of millions of dollars to burn on fitness gurus and oceanfront gyms. He spent most of his time in Lincoln, Neb., the second-most populated city in the state. The place where he went to school, earned his degree and recently donated $2 million.

Repeated requests to talk to Nebraska's coaching staff went unanswered, but Suh can give a rough version of his spring and summer in Lincoln: He ran, lifted weights and trained with the Cornhuskers football team, which he helped bring back to national prominence in 2008.

"He doesn't talk a lot unless you speak to him," NU linebacker Eric Martin said. "But he's a really good guy."

Lincoln, Suh says, is home to him. It's where everything started. The son of an elementary school teacher and a mechanical engineer, Suh was a two-way star from Portland, Ore., who was wooed by many, including Oregon and Oregon State. But something tugged at him when he visited Nebraska and told him he needed to be there; he walked through the tunnel before a home game, and fans started yelling his name. They said they needed him to come to Nebraska.

"To hear that and to get a sense of how rich that football is there and how close the fans are to the team, it meant a lot," Suh said. "You're being put in a fishbowl, and your expectations are out of the water, and I think that's good. I loved it.