National Football League

Ndamukong Suh is on his third straight Super Bowl team. What's his secret?

Updated Feb. 10, 2023 12:17 p.m. ET

Suh also chose Tampa Bay and Los Angeles before that.

Why is that significant?

All three teams have gone to a Super Bowl during Suh's time there. You might say he has a Midas touch, or perhaps a crystal ball. Either way, he's not divulging his secrets just yet.

"I think my evaluation process is pretty confidential, first and foremost," he said with a sly smile.

I caught up with him in Arizona, on the cusp of playing in his third Super Bowl in five years, now donning a midnight green jersey around his neck, not quite all the way on.

Suh is trying to stay as inconspicuous as is possible for a 6-foot-4, 313-pound defensive tackle. On media night, he hid as best he could from the throngs of reporters from all over the world at Footprint Arena.

Here, in a ballroom at the team hotel with fewer ways to escape, he's at a table all the way in the back of the room. It's because Suh isn't here to be the dude. He has been there, done that through stops in Detroit and Miami to start his career. But that doesn't mean he isn't still a dude on what could be the best defensive front in all of football.

"I've always prided myself on being able to adjust and adapt and play within any type of scheme whether it's 3-4, 4-3 and then now being in position to where I'm a 1b instead of a 1a," he said.

There's no bitterness in his tone. Something to keep in mind about Suh: He's extraordinarily self-aware. He's also meticulous and thorough in everything he does. So, while he wasn't necessarily forthcoming about exactly how he determines where he lands, there are some things he looks for.

"If I give you a little tidbit, it's just finding understanding. Kind of what role is expected of myself and how they operate as an organization," Suh said. "And going to L.A., going to Tampa and now here in Philly, I would say the one of the things that these teams focus on is building their team around the line, and even though I've said it before, and I think it's very important, you got to have great skill players. As you know, we had great guys down in Tampa with Mike [Evans] and Chris Godwin. You obviously have [Lavonte David] and all the other guys that we had on the defense, but it ran through our defense. It ran through our offensive line and had great success with those pieces. And then that just allowed our skill guys to shine even more.

"So that's how I've always viewed it and had a lot of respect for what Howie [Roseman] has built here and built this year."

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It isn't often you hear of a defensive tackle concerned with skill players when deciding which team to join. Given his adaptability in scheme, it seems Suh is more concerned with the locker room as a whole. Whether it's the physical talent of individual players or where priorities lie in assembling a team.

Not only do the Eagles have the league's deepest defensive line rotation, where players such as Suh and veteran Linval Joseph are depth players, but they have an offensive line that boasts three potential Hall of Famers. From Suh's perspective, that's a no-brainer.

But Philadelphia wasn't the only team with interest in Suh's services.

Suh didn't sign with Philly until after Week 10. His first game came in a victory over Indianapolis where he played 26% of the team's defensive snaps. He split a sack.

The time before that signing was filled with early-morning workouts, which Suh is no stranger to. As a native of Portland, Oregon, he is in and out of Nike headquarters and meeting with trainers, nutritionists and body performance specialists every offseason. He's thorough and meticulous.

The first part of this season was special, though. He and his wife, Katya, had twin boys, Kingston and Khari, in March 2021. As a result, morning workouts were followed by "lots of playtime," making Suh perhaps the best conditioned he has ever been. I mean, have you tried keeping up with toddlers? Much less the twin boys of two elite athletes (Suh's wife played college basketball at Kansas State and Nebraska).

There were other offers during that time. There was mutual interest in Suh going to San Francisco, in fact. Their defensive line coach, Kris Kocurek, drafted Suh to Detroit, and Suh wanted to reunite.

"I had another opportunity to go to San Francisco. I didn't take it," he said. "And they met us in the NFC Championship, and the right team prevailed."

Chalk that up to Suh's secret selection process, I suppose. Suh said it didn't end up being the right situation in the end. But when the Eagles came calling, he did his homework.

"I think it's overall players and how the team is built," Suh said. "It's kind of what I look at from the broad scheme of things, but then also, I have a lot of conversations with not only [Darius] Slay and Fletcher [Cox] and some of the other guys that are a part of the team already just to get a feel for how things were and what were some of the issues of why they had lost that game to Washington and stuff like that. So for me, I do my research. I'm not going to just go into something blind just because of some opportunity."

Philadelphia was the right opportunity. Just as Tampa and Los Angeles were.

Suh averages about 35-40% of the team's defensive snaps, which he doesn't see as a bad thing. It keeps him fresh and has his body feeling better than it ever has at this point in the season. That, along with Joseph, Cox, Javon Hargrave and Milton Williams on the interior has led to some serious results for everyone on the line, including the edge rushers.

The defense set a franchise record for sacks this season. Four players had 10 or more sacks in the regular season, with Haason Reddick leading the way with 16. Brandon Graham had his first double-digit sack season at age 34. As an interior player, Cox had seven sacks.

Suh might only have one sack in an Eagles jersey, but the veteran presence he brings and the mentality of the unit he's part of make him crucial to what Philadelphia has been able to do this season.

"Overall, I would say it was just an opportunity to come in and add value, be a part of the defensive line that was already good," Suh said. "Helping them get to great and get to elite. I feel like myself and Linval added tremendous value in not only the run game but also in the pass game.

"It may not always show up in statistics, but when you have 70 sacks, there's a reason why there's a lot of guys in the interior and exterior that are all working together seamlessly to make plays happen."

Carmen Vitali covers the NFC North for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.

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