Former Lions All-Pro defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is still available, and a reason why he hasn’t signed with a particular team is easily expected.
Former Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is now 35 years old, so he’s not what he was during his youthful peak when he earned four Pro Bowl nods and three First Team All-Pro selections over five seasons in Detroit.
But Suh is absolutely still an effective player, with six sacks in each of the last two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and at least seven tackles for loss in three straight campaigns.
The list of potential suitors is naturally fairly narrow for Suh, and any visions of him returning to the Lions were never realistic. He would surely prefer to join a team that has a chance to win a Super Bowl, or at minimum a team that will be relevant in the playoff race this year.
The Cleveland Browns, Las Vegas Raiders and Minnesota Vikings have surfaced off and on as the top suitors for Suh, and in June Suh himself tweeted that joining the Raiders “could be fun.” But things never seemed to get very far with any of those three teams, or any other team for that matter.
So is Suh not fully healthy? Why is he still available as the second week of preseason games goes on?
Reason Ndamukong Suh is still available is too easily expected
According to Tashan Reed of The Athletic (subscription required) the Raiders are interested in Suh, but not at his current asking price. Reed went further, pegging Suh’s demands at around $9 million per year.
Overall it seems the Raiders want to see what they have in-house at defensive tackle, as Johnathan Hankins and Bilal Nichols only recently came off the PUP list, and the idea of signing Suh is not completely out the window.
Via Spotrac, $9 million per year would tie Shelby Harris for the 18th-highest average among defensive tackles right now. Within that light, it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable ask for Suh. Until you factor in he’s not likely best-deployed as a 75-80 percent snap rate player anymore, and as more time passes his leverage to ask for much of anything diminishes.
If Suh wants to play this year, and there have been no indications he is thinking about retirement, he will have to take what he can get now as the month of August winds down. And getting down to it, with over $166 million in career on-field earnings, money should not be the No. 1 reason he’s still available. But it seems like it is.