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Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has had a pretty rough week. He was hit with a $100,000 fine on Tuesday for his low block against the Minnesota Vikings, and he has been the subject of national scrutiny for the play. The whole "Suh is a dirty player" narrative has become one of this week's biggest NFL stories, and his overall play and the Lions' victory have really been overshadowed as a result.
On Wednesday, upon first glance, it looked like the pile-on-Suh-media-tour was continuing with the release of news that he was involved in an incident last month with a Comcast employee who was working on a utility pole in his backyard. The employee accused Suh of threatening him with a pellet gun, but police saw things differently after watching surveillance video from his house. They have since cleared Suh of any wrongdoing as a result.
So what exactly happened that led to this? According to the Detroit Free Press, Suh "heard rustling in the trees behind his home." In response, he got a pellet gun from his garage before having a conversation with the Comcast employee. Here's the important part:
"At no time in the video did Mr. Suh point the pellet gun at Mr. Ferrell in a threatening manner," the report said. "The video shows the pellet gun in Suh’s right hand pointing at the ground. After several minutes, Mr. Suh has it over his right shoulder, pointing away from Mr. Ferrell."
This seems like much ado about nothing given that police cleared Suh after watching the surveillance tape. I'd be lying if I said that it's not a bit odd that these random incidents involving Suh keep popping up, but Matthew Stafford's girlfriend made a good point about this particular situation:
@freeplions handled it a lot better than I would if I was not informed that someone would be in our backyard at 9 pm to fix the cable..
— Kelly Hall (@kellybhall) September 11, 2013
Considering Suh's high-profile status, I really can't blame him for reacting the way he did when someone showed up unannounced in his backyard at night. And considering he's been cleared by police based on a video of what happened, it appears as though he did nothing wrong.