Ndamukong Suh denies taunting Matt Ryan after Ryan went down with an ankle injury during Sunday's game between the Lions and Falcons. Not content with merely clearing his name, the defensive tackle suggested the quarterback's injury, which occurred when one of Ryan's teammates stepped on his ankle, was actually a form of "karma."
"I'm not even near their quarterback, so how am I going to trash-talk somebody that has a medical staff that's all around him?" Suh said today. "That's their own problem. If you look at that play, I didn't cause his quarterback to come down. (Lawrence Jackson), who was closest man to him, and Corey (Williams) didn't cause the player to go down. Myself and Cliff (Avril) were standing next to each other.
"If you look at it, to me, it's karma. For all the bad stuff they've done in the past, their offensive lineman hurt their own quarterback. So I'll leave it at that."
Suh didn't elaborate what "bad stuff" the Falcons have done in the past, but there's clearly no love lost between these two teams. Ryan denied hearing anyone talk trash or taunt him, but Falcons center Todd McClure and receiver Roddy White told reporters they did. White's post-game comments:
"I lost a whole lot of respect for 90 [Suh] today, and also 92 [Cliff Avril], the [bleep] they were doing when Matt got hurt. That was unacceptable. ... Like 92 was kicking [Ryan's] feet, saying, ‘Get him off the field.' We don't do stuff like that. We don't rally over guys when they get hurt. It was just inappropriate behavior. I mean, ‘Get the cart'? Are you serious? Come on. When you compete, you never want to see a guy get hurt."
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan injured his knee on a play in the third quarter. As you can see from the video below, it looks like a pretty nasty injury. Stepped on by his own lineman, Ryan writhed in pain on the field for awhile after the injury. He did manage to leave the field, limping, but the status of his injury is unknown.
Falcons tackle Will Svitek is the one who stepped on Ryan’s foot. Chris Redman will replace Ryan at quarterback for Atlanta. Ryan’s ankle looked as though it was bent sideways, making it that much more surprising that it is being called a knee injury at this point.
Ryan was taken to the locker room for further evaluation of the injury. His status for a return today is questionable. The severity of his injury is unknown at this point in time. Stay tuned for further updates. Atlanta had a 17-9 lead.
