Tom Lewand spoke to the media to this morning, and in addition to confirming that the Lions had agreed to a deal with Ndamukong Suh, he also mentioned that Suh was actually involved quite a bit in negotiations.
"I give a lot of credit to (agents) Roosevelt Barnes and Eugene Parker, but obviously most importantly to Ndamukong himself because it takes a player’s involvement to really get a deal done.
The interesting thing about this is that on Saturday, it came out that Lewand hadn't spoken with Suh in "almost two weeks." I'm not sure when Suh started getting involved in the negotiating process, but based on what we heard Saturday, it would appear that it was after training camp began. Either way, it looks like Suh played a big role in a deal finally getting done.
Lewand said that Suh was involved in the negotiating process more than a typical rookie.
"I’ve always thought when a player is involved in his business dealings that can only be helpful to the process,’’ Lewand said.
Again, it's tough to read between the lines because we don't know the exact timeline of when Suh started getting involved, but if it was in fact in the last few days, then it's obvious to me his agents weren't getting things done quickly enough. Often times when rookies are asked about their contract they will stay out of it completely and refer all questions to their agent(s). For Suh, however, perhaps that was only the case before training camp began. Once he became a "holdout," then perhaps he stepped in and helped get a deal done.
Let the speculation begin, but to me these comments from Lewand make it sound like it wasn't Suh that was making this process difficult.