Terrell Suggs Says What We’re All Thinking

Feb 3, 2013; New Orleans, LA, USA; Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs (55) after their game against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

So Today Terrell Suggs made the media circuit. As one might expect, Suggs said some inflamatory things, but honestly, that is just Suggs being Suggs.

The most interesting comment, and the one I want to focus on, was the series of comments he made about the Patriots getting preferential treatment. This is a subject that has been touched on a bunch of times by a bunch of people, but I can’t remember it ever being so public, and so brash.

The center of this argument is the rule made for QB protection after Tom Brady tore his ACL in 2008 and the implementation of that rule league wide to different QBs. Suggs argument started with the creation of the rule. He started by citing the injuries to Carson Palmer, and Drew Brees(which Suggs was responsible for), which were very similar to the Brady injury(an argument can be made that the Palmer injury was  by far the most devastating of the three because he has never been the same player since). Neither of those injuries were the basis of a new NFL rule to protect them. Tom Brady was. That part can be explained away as Brady simply being the straw that broke the camels’ back so to speak.

The tougher one to explain away is the way the officials call the rule. It seems clear to anyone watching(anyone who isnt a patriot fan anyway), that the rule is called almost inexplicably tight on Tom Brady, but the rest of the leagues QBs pretty much get to fend for themselves. This one I agree with big time. How many times have we seen Joe Flacco get leveled by a high or low hit and draw no flag? what about the Super Bowl play where Flacco was hit way out of bounds after scrambling for a few yards? think Tom brady wouldnt have drawn a flag on that one? Ok, in fairness Brady would never have been in that situation…he would have slid four yards earlier and kicked Navarro Bowman in the kneecap.

The most frustrating thing about watching the Ravens play the Patriots is always waiting for that inevitable moment in the game where Brady will get knocked down and then sit on the ground for like 35 seconds and look at the ref like a petulant child until the ref is pressured into throwing the flag(usually way late) and giving out a bogus 15 yarder. Suggs definitely has a point here, I think a lot of people have been thinking this for a long long time and haven’t said it, but leave it to Suggs to be the guy to do it.