Yahoo! Sports is reporting that several members of the Atlanta Falcons are upset with Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and defensive end Cliff Avril after they apparently went too far when Falcons QB Matt Ryan went down with a knee/ankle injury in Sunday’s game.
Ryan suffered the injury when Falcons tackle Will Svitek stepped on Ryan’s ankle twisting it in a very awkward fashion. It was when Ryan was on the ground that Suh and Avril supposedly started taunting Ryan writes Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I had respect for Suh before the game,” Falcons center Todd McClure said after the game. “But when Matt was on the ground, the things he was saying and the trash he was talking was definitely uncalled for. There are certain things you don’t do. [He said], ‘Get the cart’ and several other things that I can’t repeat.”
Receiver Roddy White agreed. “I lost a whole lot of respect for 90 [Suh] today, and also 92 [Cliff Avril], the [bleep] they were doing when Matt got hurt. That was unacceptable. … Like 92 was kicking [Ryan’s] feet, saying, ‘Get him off the field.’ We don’t do stuff like that. We don’t rally over guys when they get hurt. It was just inappropriate behavior. I mean, ‘Get the cart’? Are you serious? Come on. When you compete, you never want to see a guy get hurt.”
Suh didn’t comment on the claims only saying that he was disappointed that his team lost for the second straight week.
Avril on the other hand took to Twitter to deny the Falcons’ claims…
Come on I’m not in the business of hurting not one guy on the field… I would never taunt anyone on an injury…But if we want to talk about dirty players look at the film and see who prides themselves on being dirty…
This wouldn’t be the first time Suh was labeled as a dirty player. After his decapitation attempts last season on Jake Delhomme and Andy Dalton this season Suh has come under his fair share of scrutiny for being a supposed dirty player.
Would it surprise me though if the Falcons’ claims were true? No not really considering this was a chippy game from the start. It’s just kind of ironic when you have guys like Roddy White and Todd McClure saying they’ve lost respect for someone when they play on a team with Dunta Robinson.
Ref: Yahoo! Sports, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Getty (image)
