Ndamukong Suh: Why His Villain Act Is Great for the NFL

When Ndamukong Suh meets with Roger Goodell to discuss whether or not his play has been dirty this season, he will likely plead his case that he shouldn't be cast as the villain. He said as much to The Detroit News:

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Suh has been fined three times the last two years. Last week, amid reports from Falcons players that he taunted quarterback Matt Ryan while he lay prone on the field (which Suh denied), Suh challenged anybody to show him clips of him making dirty plays.

"Go back and watch the film and then come to me and point to where I made mistakes," he said. "Point to where I cut somebody, where I hit somebody late in the back. Let me know. I want to see it."

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But such protests may fall on deaf ears in the NFL office, if for no other reasons than because in the new NFL—where eliminating concussions and head injuries has become top priority—it's become easy to create villains.

Just ask James Harrison, who was fined $125,000 last season. Whether you believe Harrison was targeted or not, believe this: the NFL wasn't complaining that the poster child for their new helmet-to-helmet policy was an all-world player on one of the league's most popular and visible franchises, the Steelers.

And now, that spotlight has turned to one of the league's best stories this year—the Detroit Lions—and one of the team's best players, Suh.

It's a win-win for the NFL, who can also thank Atlanta for calling Suh dirty and further planting the seed that Suh is a nasty, no-holds-barred warrior. That makes for a good villain.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

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Lions coach Jim Schwartz, presumably, will also attend the meeting. Schwartz was angry about the way NFL.com, an agent of the league, billed Sunday's game with the Broncos as good vs. evil — Tim Tebow being good and Suh evil.

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Sorry Schwartz, sorry Suh—storylines sell. And you may have been everybody's darling early in the year, but casting you as the NFL's new bad boys has become pretty darn compelling.