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Today is Thanksgiving. That means friends, family, food, maybe the occasional awkward political discussion and—in millions of American households—the NFL on TV.
Even if you’re not a big football fan, you probably have some vague recollection of football in the background on Turkey Day.
You might even close your eyes and conjure the “Honolulu Blue” uniforms of the Detroit Lions—the team that has played on Thanksgiving every year since 1934 (except for a couple of years during World War II).
It’s tradition, like cranberry sauce and pie—whether you’re paying attention or not.
Which is why what happened on the field 14 years ago, Thanksgiving 2011, stuck with so many people. It even stood out to casual viewers who couldn’t name five players in the league.
November 24, 2011
Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, in full view of cameras and a national audience, stomped on Green Bay Packers lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith’s arm. The suspension came immediately; the outrage lasted longer.
This Thanksgiving, as the Lions play their 93rd Turkey Day game, Suh’s legacy remains complicated: Five Pro Bowls. A Super Bowl ring and $420,669 in fines.
For what it’s worth, Evan Dietrich-Smith told reporters that Suh called him days after the 2011 stomp to apologize, and there were no hard feelings.
But at one point, only 19% of viewers had a favorable opinion of Suh, and his fellow players voted him the league’s dirtiest player two years running.
Why bring him up today? Because recently, Suh wrote something unexpected for The Athletic: an article about emotional intelligence and leadership.
‘The question is …’
Suh is retired now, though he recently said he’s confident he could still make an NFL roster if he wanted to.
But his turning point came in 2015, when he had just signed a massive contract with the Miami Dolphins and the team fired their head coach just four games into the season.
The team started mailing it in, so when the defensive players held a meeting, Suh spoke up.
“I basically said: ‘I’m going to be here. Not only because of my contract, but because I’m going to continue to play at a high level. The question is if you’re going to be here next year,’” Suh wrote.
His teammates didn’t respond well.
“I was too hostile, too direct,” he admitted in his article. “After that meeting, a lot of teammates gave me feedback.”
He recalled that Kaleb Thornhill, Miami’s director of player engagement, pulled him aside with words that stuck: “I get what you were trying to get across there, but half that room couldn’t comprehend what you were saying, let alone digest it because of the way you went about it.”
Suh says it was that moment—not the fines, not the suspensions, not being called out by national media—that taught him about how his actions affected others.
4 simple principles
Suh’s article lays out emotional intelligence principles that any leader should recognize:
- Delivery matters as much as content. “When you turn somebody off, they don’t even listen to the words you want them to hear,” he wrote. “That’s what I did in that meeting. I think what I said needed to be said—but my delivery was incorrect.”
- Same message, different approaches. You can say “You’re terrible. You didn’t do X, Y, Z. Do this again and you’re fired.” Or: “I see you had the right idea, but I would have done it this way. If you need help, I’m here.”
- Get to know people first. “You have to get to know people before you can really approach them: the trials and tribulations they’ve gone through, how they grew up. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time getting your message across.”
- Give relationships time. When Suh joined Tampa Bay in 2019, defensive lineman Vita Vea wasn’t interested in connecting. Suh invited him to work out. Vita declined. Old Suh would have written him off. This time: “You will come around when you’re ready. And when you’re ready, I will still be there.”
Eventually, Vita did. They became close friends.
“Emotional intelligence taught me to be invested in somebody and learn about who and how they are,” Suh wrote. “So I learned about Vita’s culture, I learned about his now-wife, I learned all these different things about him.”
A long time since the stomping
Fourteen years since that Thanksgiving Day stomping. It’s a long time—long enough to build a career, start a family, genuinely change as a person.
Suh’s central message: emotional intelligence isn’t innate. It’s learned. People can master things like:
- Reading the room
- Adjusting communication style based on the audience
- Building relationships over time
- Meeting people where they are
That’s practical emotional intelligence in action, and it’s the skillset that helps leaders actually lead—not just command.
So, this Thanksgiving, as the Lions play and you enjoy family, friends, and a fest, consider in Suh’s evolution. Self-awareness and growth are worth learning from—and being grateful for when you find it.
Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the game—or at least, the “Hawaiian Blue” in the background.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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Bill Murphy Jr.
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