Ex-Lion Suh kicks up the humor in shoe ad

Charles E. Ramirez
The Detroit News

Former Detroit Lion defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has humorously stepped into selling shoes.

Former Detroit Lion defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has humorously stepped into selling shoes for Foot Locker.

 

Suh and pro basketball player DeMarcus Cousins star in a commercial for the Foot Locker retail shoe chain in which they poke some fun at their reputations for bad behavior during games.

 

In the ad, titled "Make an impression," Suh and Cousins, a New Orleans Pelicans center, are walking and talking in a parking garage. The spot begins with Suh putting a Foot Locker shopping bag into the back of a SUV.

"Image is everything," Cousins tells Suh. "Everyone is so quick to judge."

Suh replies: "True. With guys like you and me, it's like our reputation proceeds us. Once people get a certain impression, that's it."

As Suh is talking in the Foot Locker commercial, he and Cousins pass a woman who has dropped her groceries on the ground and Cousins, oblivious to his surroundings, kicks a plastic bottle as he walks through the mess.

Cousins then carelessly knocks away the crutch of a man wearing a cast on his leg who is struggling to use an automated teller machine, causing him to fall.

Engrossed in the conversation, Suh walks over the man, managing to step squarely on his broken leg.

The two then head into an elevator, passing an elderly woman with a walker who was patiently waiting for a car. 

"Are we perfect?" Cousins asks rhetorically. "Maybe not. But who is?"

The commercial ends with the elevator doors closing and the duo completely unaware the poor woman was trying to join them.

Suh was drafted in the NFL by the Detroit Lions in 2010 and played for the team until 2015. He then signed with his current team, the Miami Dolphins.

He has earned a reputation as being one of the league's dirtiest players for his antics on the football field. 

He served a two-game suspension in 2011 after stomping on the arm of then-Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith. In 2012, he was fined $30,000 for kicking then-Texans quarterback Matt Schaub.

In 2014, the defensive tackle was suspended for one game for intentionally stepping on the leg of Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers after a play. He won his appeal, however, and instead was given a fine. 

Overall, he lost around $420,000 in fines and suspensions for on-field misbehavior while with the Lions. 

During his first season with the Dolphins, he grabbed national headlines for dislodging an opposing player's helmet during a game in Washington. Suh tackled Redskins' running back Alfred Morris, and when Suh got up, his right leg made contact with Morris' helmet. The league said it wouldn't take action against Suh after determining his contact with Morris wasn't a kick.

cramirez@detroitnews.com