Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh lost none of his aggressiveness in Week Two after being fined $100,000 for an illegal low block in Week One.
Against the Cardinals, he routinely overpowered or outmaneuvered his man when single-teamed, and Suh twice blew up in the backfield a handoff that was supposed to go away from him after the guard that otherwise would have blocked Suh pulled. Suh also tolerated a couple of efforts by Cardinals guard Paul Fanaika to dive at Suh’s knees.
But Suh got his licks in. One lick in particular apparently slipped past the attention of the game officials -- and the league office.
On a play that came with just under 9:30 in the third quarter, Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer took a shotgun snap from the Arizona 47 and handed off to running back Rashard Mendenhall, who cut left to right and gained nine yards.
Suh initially faced a double-team block from Fanaika and Eric Winston. After Mendenhall migrated through the tackle box and when Suh was engaged only by Winston, Suh toppled Winston with a fast but ferocious right hook/elbow to the head.
Suh wasn’t penalized or fined for the maneuver, which largely has gone unnoticed.
And so it appears that a problem still exists with Suh, even if neither the NFL nor the Lions have acknowledged that he was dishing out cheap shots on the second Sunday of the 2013 regular season, seven days after being fined $100,000 for illegally hitting Vikings center Jonathan Sullivan in the knee on the first Sunday of the 2013 regular season.