Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

Ndamukong Suh Turns Heads With Jab at Matthew Stafford on Wednesday

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Lorenzo J. Reyna | Last updated Jul 23, 2025 4:08 PM ET

Ndamukong Suh and Matthew Stafford hold the claim of beloved Detroit Lions who became Los Angeles Rams. Suh, however, turned heads with a subtle jab at his former quarterback Wednesday.

Suh earned a massive amount of dollars in his career: $168 million in total. However, he felt underpaid in the Motor City. Including mentioning Stafford's name in Suh's Facebook video post.

"Detroit, in my opinion, when I first came out, really gave me the short end of the stick. I should have been paid more than Matthew Stafford because I was the next first-round pick coming out for them in the draft and I felt like I was going to be a cornerstone for them," Suh said.

So what went wrong between Suh and the Lions' front office?

“But they didn’t value me enough to say, ‘Hey, you’re not going to get paid more than our quarterback,'" Suh revealed.

How did Suh respond to that deflating financial moment?

"I said, ‘Fine, what I’ll do is I’ll prove you guys wrong that I, at the end of the day, deserve to be considered one of the cornerstones,'" Suh said.

Suh even entered the league before the NFL implemented its rookie wage scale. He arrived in 2010 one year after Detroit grabbed Stafford first overall. The prized defensive tackle from Nebraska used this context as to why he believed he got "the short end of the stick."

Suh continued to drop more reasonings on why he felt undercut money wise.

"I was a cornerstone of the Detroit Lions, just like Stafford, just like Calvin [Johnson], but the pay never matched the weight I carried," he posted.

He added how "I was the guy offenses game-planned for. I was the one of the guys setting the tone in the locker room and on the field. And while quarterbacks get the big checks, I was the one putting my body on the line every play, chasing down QBs."

Suh rose indeed as a beloved star for the Lions. He earned four of his Pro Bowls with the Lions. He believes his influence on the franchise should've earned him more money.

However, one potential counterargument is Suh's constant run-ins with the league office as to perhaps why Detroit didn't want to overpay. His rookie season got marred with hefty fines. He then earned suspensions for on-field behavior in 2011 -- including his stomping incident on former Green Bay Packers guard Evan Dietrich-Smith.

Suh still rose as a dominating interior force for the Lions with Stafford leading the offense. Both helped end the franchise's 13-season dry spell of missing the playoffs in 2011. Suh and Stafford, however, never won a playoff game in Detroit.

Suh eventually experienced his first Super Bowl taste with the Rams in 2018. He piled 59 tackles with 4.5 sacks that campaign. That became his only season with the franchise. He eventually won the 2020 Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: