You're Lying To Yourself If You Don't Think Ndamukong Suh's Kick On Ryan Fitzpatrick Was Intentional
BOSTON (CBS) -- Shocking news: Ndamukong Suh did something dirty. And this one was almost subtle enough to get away with it.
The NFL's most notorious cheap shot artist took his mastery of borderline-sociopathic sneak attacks on fellow players to new levels against the New York Jets in London on Sunday. This latest move isn't quite as deliberate as, say, when he stomped the Packers' Evan Dietrich-Smith and put all of his weight on Aaron Rodgers' leg. But it's still Suh being Suh.
Dolphins fans and Suh apologists will look at this and say "Oh come on, he's just trying to slow down and he accidentally grazed Fitzpatrick's helmet trying to dodge him." To those people, I say just stop. Give up trying to defend this guy.
It's not that Suh became a ninja and perfectly executed a Jet Li double-roundhouse kick to the chin in the moment. But he didn't exactly try to avoid Fitzpatrick's head either. This isn't so much "I'm going to give Fitzy some chin music here" as "I'm not going to stop my feet from flailing at his head and hopefully nobody catches it."
Suh is the worst kind of bully. He will sucker-punch you in the mouth, then deny it to get out of trouble. He wants all of the action with none of the consequences. This incident looks juuust accidental enough where he may avoid punishment, but anyone familiar with Suh's history knows he was looking to go cleat-to-head on Fitzpatrick. His priors should play a role in whether he gets fined for the kick.
Suh has practically elevated cheap shots to performance art. He's mastered the act of playing dirty while pretending it was an accident. Problem is, everyone already knows he's a psycho. It's common knowledge that whenever Suh's limbs make seemingly incidental contact with another player, that means it was probably intentional.
Suh was not flagged on the play, but the TV cameras picked up enough to catch him in the act. Fitzpatrick didn't say much when asked about it after the game.
"I felt [Suh]...I wasn't sure who it was," Fitzpatrick said. "But I don't know. I mean, they didn't throw a flag on it. I was just trying to dive and get a first down and my slow speed allowed me to come up miserably short, but it was all right. They didn't throw a flag, which was fine."
Bottom line, Suh is probably going to get more discipline for this, and if he's asked about it he will once again come up with embarrassing excuses like he did with the 2011 stomping incident. He won't learn until he does something really bad and earns himself an extensive suspension. Until Suh proves he doesn't revert to this deceitfully violent behavior whenever the opportunity arises, he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
Watch the kick below and judge for yourself:
Suh kicked Fitzpatrick in the head, knocking his helmet off pic.twitter.com/dM8KJCQJvm
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) October 4, 2015
Seriously though, the Patriots offensive line needs to keep Suh away from Tom Brady at all times when the Dolphins play the Pats. Last thing they need is to lose TB12 because some psycho curb-stomped him after the whistle.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com and intentional kicker of Allston sewer rats. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read more from Matt here. Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
