OT: Lions player accused verbally harassing UW Band

Submitted by SamirCM on

Didn't see this on here, but Lions Center Raiola has been accused of verbally harassing members of the UW marching band prior to the beginning of the game. I don't know much about him and I didn't see the game, did anyone hear anything about this? 

 

The Lions are investigating this. 

TheLastHarbaugh

October 7th, 2013 at 7:43 PM ^

A lot of Suh's "incidents" have been complete BS, IMO. A lot of them were media driven stories to create this false narrative of both Suh and the Lions so that talking heads have something to direct their faux outrage at.

It's just become a giant anti-Suh circle jerk at ESPN.

------------------------------------------

Take the Sullivan incident....

I've seen people making claims that Suh not only attempted to injure Sullivan, but that he was aware of Sullivan's prior injury history with regard to his knee, so he intentionally dove into that knee with the malicious intent to end Sullivan's career.

It is complete and utter insanity.

What happens if Levy stumbles and falls, or fumbles the ball, and Sullivan is able to recover it or make a tackle? Then everyone would be criticizing Suh for "giving up on the play," and not making a block there.

Sullivan clearly thought he still had a shot to make a play, otherwise he would not have been running after the ball carrier.

I think Suh was trying to hit him in the waist but misjudged the block, and I've seen replays that I feel vindicate my opinion. It was simply unfortunate that Suh went too low.

I think you can criticize Suh for going too low (making the block illegal), however I think it is foolish to criticize him for attempting to make a block there.

Never give up on a play by just assuming that an outcome is a given. That's football 101.

-------------------------------------------

Now let's take the "kick" on Schaub...

Do I think Suh intentionally tried to kick Schaub in the balls? Absolutely not.

Do I think Suh tried to swing his leg into Schaub to disrupt his throwing motion? Possibly, maybe even probably.

Do I think Suh's leg hitting Schaub was an accident? Maybe. I think he might have tried to disrupt his throwing motion with the leg, but he certainly wasn't trying to sack tap Schaub. It very well could have been a complete accident.

I think that is an entirely reasonable stance and most likely describes what happened.

Then I watch ESPN.

Those douche bags just straight up say, "Suh intentionally kicked Schaub where the sun don't shine to injure him," with total impunity. I come away from that stuff completely disgusted in their commentary.

Suh has been fined for several legal hits (Cutler, grabbing Marion Barber's dreads), and for one totally incidental play (the kick) because of these media hacks.

---------------------------------------

In my opinion, Suh is an extremely aggressive player who plays with reckless abandon. This has lead to a few unfortunate incidents in the past, but I don't think he goes out there with the intent to maim or harm his opponents.

The only truly egregious act he committed was the stomp, which was in response to dirty tactics used by the Packers' offensive line against him. You can go through the video on Youtube. They dove at his knees several times, a few after the plays were done, untied his shoelaces, held him down on the ground, etc....

The stomp was still inexcusable, but the idea that it was totally unprompted, or that it occurred in a vacuum, is ridiculous.

Suh's goal is to make the opposing quarterback's life miserable, which in today's NFL is frowned upon.

It's interesting that when Suh first entered the league his play was viewed by ESPN analysts as "aggressive," "nasty," and "hard-nosed." Suh had that "old school mentality," of "getting after it on every play," and "punishing" his opponents. He plays "angry," with "fire."

All of those adjectives were used in a positive light to reflect the kind of throwback player Suh is, but suddenly the whole of ESPN took an about face. Using a lot of the same sorts of descriptors and sayings, only those with a negative connotation. Suh is "dirty," "nasty," and "malicious." He plays with the "intent to injure" (instead of "punish"), with "unbridled rage," and is "totally out of control."

Funny how that works, isn't it?

The bottom line is that Suh was called for a number of penalties over the course of his first two seasons and corrected that behavior in his third season, but it's too late though, because the ESPN narrative has been created.

Suh is dirty and everything he does needs to be examined and re-examined through that already established "fact."

No matter the mental gymnastics or "seven degrees of Kevin Bacon" one must jump through to get there.

 

Committed

October 7th, 2013 at 7:19 PM ^

Didn't he go to school there? Raiola has always had strong opinions. He's in the news for the lions at least once a year. Either for flicking off the crowd or verbalizing his opinions or whatever...



He really has no filter.

loyalblue15

October 7th, 2013 at 8:36 PM ^

Back in 2011 when M played Nebraska, Raiola and Suh stood on the sidelines at about the 25 yard line. From my seats in Section 3, I could hear him get into it with a maize and blue fan. I feel bad for the people who had kids nearby. Suh just chuckled but didn't chime in at all.



Not saying the Michigan fan was right to talk smack back to him, but is it really smart to curse out fans in the state you have played your whole NFL career in? Not that was a lot before, but I lost any respect for Raiola that day. He's trash.

LB

October 7th, 2013 at 9:55 PM ^

Stadium when I didn't cringe at something a fan was yelling at a player or players.

I wonder how Raiola knew the kid's mother was dead. My mother is dead, but I never wore a sign on my head announcing that fact to random football players. I suppose it is possible that Raiola made a comment using the word mother and the band member is using his dead mother to troll for additional sympathy.

 

Feat of Clay

October 7th, 2013 at 10:11 PM ^

I'm not offering an excuse for his actions, but there is bad blood between Nebraska fans & Wisconsin fans. Some of the Husker faithful came back with tales of abysmal treatment in Madison on their first trip up after joining the Big Ten.