Surgery might have caused Suh's slump

INDIANAPOLIS — Warren Sapp had surgery on his shoulders during his soon-to-be Hall of Fame playing career, zapping Sapp of power he never recovered.

The current NFL Network analyst and former All-Pro defensive tackle said he thinks Ndamukong Suh's own 2011 shoulder procedure is one of a handful of reasons his play slipped this season.

"The thing that I think affected him was he played such a power game, grabbing people, slinging them out of the way," Sapp said last week during a break at Super Bowl XLVI media day. "He had rotator cuff surgery. I had one on each shoulder. I kind of know what that's like, so you have to put yourself in a position to where there's no offseason, there's no rehab and all the things that he needed to do to be able to get that strength back."

Suh had a monster rookie season with 10 sacks and 66 tackles. He was named All-Pro and won rookie of the year.

But he underwent right shoulder surgery last January, didn't have the benefit of a supervised offseason program because of the lockout and saw a decline in production across the board (four sacks and 36 tackles this season).

Coach Jim Schwartz regularly defended Suh's play during the season, and General Manager Martin Mayhew said this month that Suh "played pretty solid" and "very consistently" all year.

But Sapp said, "From his first year to his second year (Suh looked like) he hadn't worked on anything.

"He's never been a hip-flipper or a true pass rusher," Sapp said. "He was just overpowering, throwing people out of the way. And on this level everybody's that strong, so that's what you saw was him with his shoulder, and people just understanding he was just going to go through them. That's the way he rushes: He goes through you. So only thing I've got to do (as an offensive lineman) is get myself a nice little base and be ready to go."

Michael Lombardi, an NFL Network analyst and former league executive who worked with Schwartz in Cleveland, said Suh "got away from what he does best, (which) is power, which is being physically dominating at the line of scrimmage."

"He started to try to be an edge player," Lombardi said. "It's like a baseball pitcher who tries to throw curveballs when he's a fastball pitcher. So I think the best thing that happened to him was they're going to sit in a room with him this offseason, and they're going to watch tape of him, and they're going to say, 'Hey, this is what you did last year, this is what you did as a rookie.' As a rookie, his power was unique for a rookie. Last year, it wasn't."

Beyond the shoulder surgery, Sapp and others were critical of how Suh handled — and is still dealing with — the fallout from his Thanksgiving Day stomp of Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith.

Suh was suspended two games for stepping on Dietrich-Smith's right arm, but after the game, he insisted the stomp wasn't intentional and lashed out at the media for labeling him a dirty player.

"Until he's going to be honest with himself, he's going to have a long career or whatever he wants to call what he's doing now," Sapp said. "How's he still standing there talking about he was stepping away from this man? In what universe does he live in? I don't get it."

Since the end of the season, Suh has gone on a national media tour in an attempt to repair his image. He appeared on pregame and halftime shows during CBS's coverage of the AFC playoffs, he made a late-night appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and he did a sitdown with Hannah Storm that aired Tuesday on ESPN.

In that interview, Suh said talk of him needing anger management is "funny to me" and added he would never try to hurt someone on the field.

"Contrary to some perception, this is a very intelligent player that has a certain maturity about him beyond his years that got thrown in a situation that I hope he looks back in hindsight, separates himself from the people that are handling him and understands, no, this is not the way to handle it," Fox and NFL Network analyst Brian Billick said. "I think the response, even today that I saw in the recent interview, shows a lack of understanding that you need to handle this better. You have the maturity to do it. To still hold to the stomp as being, 'I'm a victim of my circumstance' — no, you lost your cool. Admit to it, recognize it, take the blinders off and move past it, and you're going to be fine."

Sapp said one thing that shouldn't be an excuse for Suh's decline in play is his off-field interests.

Suh spent time last offseason in Europe for a car rally and made other promotional appearances across the country, but he said he worked out every step along the way.

"You have to self-evaluate in this game," Sapp said. "You have to look at yourself and say, where can I get better?' And I knew I needed to get better at my strength and my conditioning and then also my pass rush, so I went in the offseason (after my rookie year) and worked on nothing but my pass rush and speed and run and just go at it. You've got to grind at the job. This is your profession. There's nothing else. Subway will work around your schedule, I guarantee you."

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