Suh, Goodell to Discuss Rules in Meeting

If image is everything, then Detroit Lions defensive end Ndamukong Suh realizes he could have a problem.

Suh, who has been drawing attention, along with three fines, for rough hits over the past two seasons, will be meeting with N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell on Tuesday to plead his case that he’s really just playing hard, and not dirty.

“It’s more or less just to get an understanding of how they want to look at my play,” Suh told The Detroit News on Sunday, after the Lions’ 45-10 win over the Broncos in Denver. “It’s just an opportunity to have a great dialogue and see what I can take out of the meeting. If it’s nothing, then it’s nothing. If it’s something, then it’s something.”

The meeting will include Suh, Goodell, the league executives Ray Anderson, Carl Johnson, Merton Hanks and the operations consultant Jeff Fisher.

“Commissioner Goodell and his staff have had many meetings with players, both individually and in groups,” the N.F.L. spokesman Greg Aiello told The Detroit News. “This particular meeting has been in the works for several weeks and grew out of Commissioner Goodell’s respect for Ndamukong Suh and Ndamukong’s desire to gain a deeper understanding of NFL rules and policies.”

Lions Coach Jim Schwartz is also expected to be at the meeting, and he could have some words about NFL.com’s dubbing of Sunday’s Lions-Broncos game as “Good vs. Evil,” the inference being that Tim Tebow and the Broncos are good and Suh and the Lions are evil.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate at all for anybody associated with the game to bill it that way and it was especially disappointing coming from an arm of the N.F.L.,” Schwartz said. “It wasn’t a rallying cry or anything else but it was disappointing and I don’t think it was appropriate. We are trying to win games. We’re certainly not trying to market ourselves that way.”

Suh also took issue with the good vs. evil story line.

“Evil prevails and hopefully we are going to continue to keep it that way if that’s (how) they want to perceive us,” Suh said to MLive.com. “For me personally, it means nothing to me. I’m going to continue to be me. I know who I am. I’m not an evil person.”

Suh was most recently accused by Atlanta Falcons players of mocking and taunting quarterback Matt Ryan while he was down with a knee injury. Suh was angered by the accusation, denying that he had done anything to Ryan.

“Go back and watch the film and then come to me and point to where I made mistakes,” he said. “Point to where I cut somebody, where I hit somebody late in the back. Let me know. I want to see it.”

But the Lions did not help their increasingly dark reputation against the Broncos. Several Lions mocked Tebow on Sunday for his public professions of faith, first when linebacker Stephen Tulloch kneeled in “prayer” (a take-off from Tebow’s genuflecting pose coined as “Tebowing“), and then Tony Scheffler punctuated his touchdown with a half-kneel nod to Tebow and a mock Mile-High salute.

“It was just something that I thought about throughout the week knowing that I’d be spying him and have a couple blitzes to get after him,” Tulloch to MLive.com. “It’s something I was having fun with. I told one of my friends I was going to do it, so I was able to do it.”