Tom Brady can be receiving $ 375 million to talk about the NFL in Fox, but he is the Sky Sports analyst, Ndamukong Suh, who could pay greater dividends for a league fixed to grow in the United Kingdom.
With the NFL scenario 39 regular seasonal games in London since 2007, experts have predicted the British league expansion for years. Commissioner Roger Goodell has even raised the idea of having a complete division in Europe.
However, it is the media that have the task of explaining this foreign sport with a family name. And it is in that role that Suh, a winner of the Super Bowl and an Anglophile in the Bluenes, has become increasingly familiar to the British public.
“When I am in London,” Suhmamail.com told suhmail.com, “practically just on the way to everywhere. And there are these last two weeks, a couple of people stopped me, like” Heaven? “And I'm just like,” Oh , that's great”.
It is a dramatic deviation from the United States, where the 6 feet 4-inch and 315 pounds was better known as a fierce tacle that incurred thousands of league fines for its brutal style of play.
Suh now laughs at that reputation, admitting that most think of him as a “bad and angry soccer player.”
The former NFL player Ndamukong Suh attends the transmission bootcamp of the league in 2023
Ndamukong Suh and his wife Katya are seen during their time with the Los Angeles Rams
But for British spectators, Suh is the affable Sky Sports analyst who works in the study throughout the Neil Reynolds, Phoebe Schecter and the NFL field marshal Ryan Fitzpatrick. And for its part, Suh has enjoyed opening the eyes of Great Britain on the grill, even when you take steps with a country that is still working on the basics.
“I think that the UK and Europe audience in general are very acute and people who can understand almost everything,” said Suh, who knows that the League can be difficult to understand with their rules book constantly changing.
“I played more than 13 years and there are rules and things that sometimes I don't even understand, why they are inside and (why) change every year,” he added.
Suh, his wife Katya and his twin children still have their headquarters in the United States, dividing their time between Tampa, where he won a ring with Brady and his native Portland, Oregon. But with the growing interest of the League in the United Kingdom and its own growing popularity within the country, Suh has thought about crossing the Atlantic.
“We, as a family, were (thinking of moving), but I am very interested in financial education and their taxes are not fun to be a part,” Suh said about the United Kingdom, where federal taxes on income can reach so high as 45 percent. “So I think we will renounce that and stay just where we are.”
However, all that could change if London gets his own team, something that Katya would certainly welcome.
She and her twins enjoyed visiting her father in London during the weeks she served as an analyst at the Sky Sports studio. And while the children have a school system instead, Katya explained, there is “everything for that.”
“I love, I love London,” he said, putting more emphasis on the second “love.”
Suhs are seen with the Lombardi trophy while she was pregnant with the couple's twins
In addition, Suh really has a family in the Birmingham area, since he learned when an aunt sent a text message to his mother to tell him that he had seen him on television.
Son of a Cameroonian father and a Jamaican mother, Suh always knew that his grandparents obtained the citizenship of the United Kingdom at some point, but did not understand the complete connection of his family with the country until he began working with Sky Sports at the beginning of the NFL 2023 season.
“So I think that is why (I have) an affinity for the United Kingdom and London,” he said, “because I have roots there.”
The media, on the other hand, have been more an adjustment for Suh, who was certainly “resistant” to the idea, since he was finishing his career in 2021 and 2022.
As a player, people regularly said how “well spoken” was, but it wasn't until Katya began to encourage him to look at a media race that really considered the option.
A communications student in Nebraska, where he played basketball for cornhuskers and met his future husband, Katya wanted fans to know the real man and not the fearsome defensive Tackle.
“I think people change, and if we were all judged with the decisions we made when we were 20 years or 22 years old, I think we would all be a little ashamed, including myself,” he said. “So we discover a way of highlighting who really is and where he wants to spend his energy.”
Suh went through the NFL media boots camp in 2023 together with former teammate Jason Kelce
Ndamukong Suh (extreme right) has a casual presence in the nfl coverage of Sky Sports
The League was happy to accommodate inviting Suh, its former rival and teammate of the Eagles, Jason Kelce, as well as another 22 for the NFL three -day media camp in 2023.
Best of all, Suh discovered a love for television after some initial doubts.
“It was really exciting to see him return and be like,” Hey, this may not be my area, “and then say,” well, actually … “,” said Katya.
And it was not only Suh who noticed his aptitude to speak in the air. Steve Wyche, a NFL network correspondent that was chosen to speak in the workshop, He told Atlético in 2023 which was impressed with former Cornhusker star.
“I love talking to him because he is such an intelligent and deep guy who wants to share or learn something especially,” Wyche said.
'As for my impressions, it would be great, especially as a study analyst. Suh is a high IQ thinker whose perceptions of people, situations and game are not common. This is what could distinguish it. Once the mechanics of television dominate, it would arise like a star. He doesn't like hyperbole or wing. He would put the job and distinguish.
The networks also realized.
Suh impressed ESPN Brass when he worked as a guest analyst at NFL Live, according to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, and the football producer Sunday Night of NBC, Fred Gaudelli, sprouted his warmth in the air, which drastically contrasts with his reputation in the field.
“It is almost the opposite of what you saw in the field,” Gaudelli told Athletic.
“It seemed to really consider everything before speaking,” he continued. 'It's a little soft voice, not this gregarious personality, but has these very expressive eyes and facial expressions. It is almost the type of person that when he says something, you will want to listen to it because you do not think it will be the standard rate. ''
Suh now accredits the NFL Media training camp with its aplomb in the air, which helped navigate an unfortunate fire alarm in the Sky Sports Studios earlier this season.
“People do not know this, there was a fire alarm in the middle of our set, and we had to leave,” Suhmamail.com told Suhmail.com. 'Everyone is on their phones looking, making sure to follow the game, continue taking notes, understand those different pieces. And guess what? We went directly to part time, where we could go to talk for almost 15, 20 minutes.
“We just had to deal with a 20 -minute fire alarm, and nobody knew.”
And that is not the only media exposure that the second selection of the NFL Draft 2010 has for itself.
Suhs participate in a series of soccer -related scenes. Comedian Jason Banks He has written and published on social networks. The well -received parodies are made, but are not expressed, by Ndamukong and Katya, and generally focus around them explaining the finest points of the game.
“That is an illegal formation,” Suh to Katya told a sketch with Banks' voice, is called his own.
Is that illegal? A stunned Katya gasped with his voice replaced by Banks. ' So is a criminal?
The pieces are fast and fun, but they also have a greater purpose.
“My wife is, to say at least, a very verogent thought, especially when it comes to social networks and give life to their presence,” Suhmamail.com told.
“She can see a multitude of different personalities that I have … So (fans) can see a different side of me, a fun of fun, exciting, from that point of view it was great,” he continued. 'And I like to see people hug him. He is a bit surprising, such as: “ Oh my God. I didn't realize how funny it is “.
And now, thanks to Katya's encouragement, the growing base of Suh fans is beginning to see, understand and appreciate the self -denominated 'Teddy Bear' and 'Jokester'.
“My wife definitely pushed me to be a little more open to it,” Suh said about his media career. “You have to put yourself in those uncomfortable decisions to really understand whether you can prosper or not.”