TUESDAY, 5:52pm: Pictures on the Lions’ website confirm that Suh is in attendance for OTA and participating in drills.
SUNDAY, 1:01pm: Lions head coach Jim Caldwell expects Ndamukong Suh to participate at OTAs this week, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press and Michael Rothstein of ESPN.com (Twitter links). Birkett notes in a separate tweet that, if Suh indeed shows up, it would be in keeping with his normal offseason routine.
Suh did not attend the team’s voluntary minicamp in April, and shortly thereafter rumors began to circulate that the Lions may be willing to trade Suh, though common sense indicated that, even if those rumors were true, it would be virtually impossible for Detroit to pull off such a trade. Suh carries an exoribitant $22.4MM cap hit in 2014, which had led to preliminary extension talks between Suh’s camp and the Lions’ brass.
As our Luke Adams noted last month, and as Birkett indicated above, Suh’s absence from early offseason workouts and his participation in May’s programs is par for the course for him, and so Caldwell’s statements are not surprising. It may, however, come as a relief to Lions fans that Suh is going about business as usual and presumably does not plan to hold out for an extension. It will be interesting to keep tabs on whether or not extension talks do indeed resume and if they progress beyond the preliminary stage.