Opinions Vary on Ndamukong Suh’s Personal Foul Against Jake Delhomme

If you’re going to get flagged for a personal foul, you might as well get your money’s worth. Ndamukong Suh certainly did. For those of you that missed Suh’s brutal take down of Brown’s quarterback Jake Delhomme, see below:

Some people have wanted to know my opinion of the play so I put this post together to give a flavor of the variety of opinions that are floating around and throw mine into the mix.

Face mask penalties are going to happen from time to time. We saw one earlier in the preseason from Kyle Vanden Bosch. If you want an aggressive pass rush from your front four then you are just going to have to live with the occasional grasp of the quarterback’s face mask.

Ndamukong Suh’s face mask plus take down went beyond that but I welcome the sight, as long as we don’t see it again. I have waited a long time to see a good defense from the Lions. They won’t qualify as such this year but seeing a nasty streak out of the man drafted to be one of the faces of a rebuilt defensive front is a step in the right direction. As long as what happened on Saturday night was a statement of arrival in his first game in front of his new hometown fans and not the first of a series of bad decisions then by all means, welcome to Detroit Mr. Suh!

Browns back-up quarterback Seneca Wallace went so far as to say Suh should be suspended for his actions. He was quoted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer as saying:

"He already face-masked him, then he grabs him by the neck, twists it and throws him down. To me, that’s something you can get suspended for, I think."

The Browns organization is not going as far as suggesting a punishment but will ask the league to review the play according to the Associated Press:

"Browns coach Eric Mangini on Monday said he would ask the league to investigate the play, but he assumed it would do so anyway.Mangini does not believe there was any malice on the part of the No. 2 overall draft pick, and Delhomme said he would leave it up to the league to decide whether a suspension or fine is warranted."

Oakland Press columnist Pat Caputo turned the tables and posted an indictment on the state of the Browns team on the level of Ndamukong Suh’s throwdown:

"The idea of fining Suh for that play is a joke, and says a lot more about the Browns’ lack of toughness than it says about Suh’s lack of sportsmanship."

Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner provides a good look at some similar plays Suh made in college and notes the difference between the way the NCAA and NFL protects the quarterbacks.

No matter your opinion it would have been foolish to expect anything less from a man whose name means “House of Spears”.