Roddy White Falsely Accusing Ndamukong Suh of Taunting Matt Ryan?

In the aftermath of the Lions and Falcons clash at Ford Field, the talking point of the game is not that the Lions are mired in a losing streak, but that Ndamukong Suh and Cliff Avril were disrespectful towards Matt Ryan when he was injured in game.

The accusations began in post-game interviews when Roddy White and Todd McClure claimed Suh and Avril were kicking at Ryan and taunting him about his injury in a derogatory way. Without a doubt, this would be blatantly wrong and deserving of a fine from the NFL.

However, in response, Suh and teammate Stephen Tulloch have said that what they have been accused of did not happen—no Lions taunted or kicked Ryan because none were close enough.

Today, White has gone on the air in response saying on NBC Sports:

"

I just know he's going to say whatever he wants to say, but we know what they said. We were standing right there in the huddle, we saw when he went down and that's before the medical staff got there that they said was in front of the play. We didn't say he kicked Matt; we said one of the guys, I don't know if it was 92 or 93, one of the defensive ends, came over and he was making kicking gestures like, "Get him out of here, get him out of here."

I know Suh said what he said. He said, "Go get the cart for him, get him out of here." He knows he said that and we’re not going to go back and forth about what he said-she said.  And then he's going to say it was karma for what we've done in the past when their quarterback gets hurt on the last play of the game and they have an MRI today.

"

The first obvious take-away from this quote is that the Falcon's have changed their story. After the event, McClure said, "Like 92 was kicking [Ryan's] feet." 

Nevertheless, today, White said, "We didn't say he kicked Matt; we said one of the guys, I don't know if it was 92 or 93, one of the defensive ends, came over and he was making kicking gestures."

This is obviously wrong, as McClure said that a Lion kicked Ryan. While the Lions are constantly asking media to look at the tape and decide for themselves, the Falcons are changing their story under pressure. If they were school kids blaming each other for breaking a window, who would you believe?

Secondly, a kicking gesture is a very ambiguous term and could very easily be a Lions player stretching his leg, and having that movement misinterpreted by a passionate Falcon as "kicking gestures." Nevertheless, a kicking gesture does not seem that offensive. It sounds more like White trying to justify his criticism.

Also, TV coverage never showed a Lion kicking, or even gesturing kicking, at Ryan.

Also, after having re watched the video of Ryan's injury, Suh's claim that he was not near enough to Ryan to taunt him or kick him is totally justified. Suh never got closer than seven or eight yards from Ryan, and from the broadcast angle available on NFL.com seemed to be walking away from the injured player almost immediately. He certainly never appeared to comment or kick at Ryan.

Also, while watching the video I noticed White took a long time to get near Ryan. This makes sense as he is a wide receiver, but by the time he was within hearing distance of his quarterback there were referees surrounding Ryan. Surely if the player was taunted, they would have disciplined him for it. This places doubt in my mind over White's claim that he heard Suh taunt Ryan.

White claimed Suh said, "Go get the cart for him, get him out of here." This does not sound very derogatory or taunt-like. To me, it seems more a statement of what he believes should be done given how bad the injury looked, or even compassion for a seriously injured player. It does not sound like trash-talk.

Finally, in his response Suh made comment that if a Falcons defender had taunted Matthew Stafford in a similar situation, Detroit's offensive linemen would have started a brawl. This seems totally reasonable given their role is to protect the quarterback. Since they did not react at all at the time, this would indicate that the story has been made up by the Falcons team in the changing room or exaggerated for the media after the game. In the heat of the moment a team would always come to the aid of an injured teammate in the circumstances the Falcon's described.

In conclusion, it seems to me that Suh and the rest of the Detroit defense are being unfairly labelled as "dirty" because of the hearsay of a few Falcons, one of which is notorious for running his mouth and was not present directly after the injury. We may never know what truly happened on Sunday, but from what is available at the moment it seems to this football fan that the Lions defense did not do anything untoward to Ryan. I just hope that if the allegations are false the Falcons responsible for them did so out of zealous protectiveness of their quarterback, rather than a malicious lie targeted at one of the brightest young stars in the NFL.

I just hope that this does not make an indelible mark on the reputation of Suh or the Lions organization. With luck, saner heads will prevail.