He’s not under contract, yet. But Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, the second overall pick in the 2010 draft, is packing his bags and getting ready to go to Detroit.
How do we know this? Suh said so himself, on his Twitter page.
In his first entry in nearly a week, Suh posted the following message last Monday night: “What a great day of workouts and relaxing and packing for D twn. PS looking forward to camp!!”
The Lions open training camp on Friday. And while Suh has said nothing about actually leaving for Detroit or signing a contract when he arrives, he seems to be anxious to get going.
Some teams would use that disclosure as leverage against the player. If, after all, the player is champing (yes, it’s champing not chomping) at the bit to suit up and play, he’ll be likely to take slightly less favorable terms. That’s why many agents don’t allow their clients to come to the town in which the team’s training camp will be conducted until a deal is done or extremely close to it. Other agents will secretly put their clients up in a nearby location, so that they’ll be able to show up and sign the deal and join the team in training camp as soon as the terms are worked out.
Some think that Suh, the only player in the top five not represented by CAA, would be wise to wait for the mega-firm to finalizes deals for the first overall pick (Rams quarterback Sam Bradford) and the third overall pick (Bucs defensive tackle Gerald McCoy). But Suh apparently wants to play football -- a refreshing trait given that he’s going to strike it rich; the only question at this point is how rich he’ll strike it.