As well probably already know, Lions first pick, second overall Ndamukong Suh signed his contract this morning and reported to Lions training camp ending a 3 and a half day holdout with the team.
First mentioned by Downtown Russell Brown of detroit.themajors.net, Suh signed a $68MM contract with $40MM guaranteed over five seasons. This definitely came as good news to the team that drafted Suh to shore up a very weak defensive line in years past.
“It was a tough time. Obviously, I wanted to be in camp on time as I said previously. That’s what I said. Unfortunately, I wasn’t, so I apologize for that,” Suh said. “As we all know, it’s a business, and my agents did a great job of taking care of that for me because that’s what I hired them for. They did everything I asked and took care of it the way I wanted it taken care of. That’s beyond the point now. I’m in camp now and I’m excited to be here.”
Suh has taken some heat in the Detroit area after mentioning that he wasn’t going to hold out however failed to follow through with that promise. Some felt that Suh betrayed the team with some fans wanting the Lions to cut ties with the DT altogether. How mad can you get at Suh though? In retrospect he only missed 3 and a half days which I admit is an important 3 and a half games for a rookie but the bottom line is there is still plenty of training camp left and he is going to have more then enough time to get prepared for the upcoming season. Suh isn’t the first and definitely won’t be the last pro athlete in Detroit to hold out prior to training camp. We are just lucky it didn’t last longer.
If any of you are wondering, Suh did take part in his rookie duties as well by carrying Cliff Avril’s and Jared DeVries’ helmet after practice.