Fearsome ex-NFL star Ndamukong Suh is reinvented as smiling face of UK Super Bowl coverage with wife's help

Fearsome ex-NFL star Ndamukong Suh is reinvented as smiling face of UK Super Bowl coverage with wife's help

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Fearsome ex-NFL star Ndamukong Suh is reinvented as smiling face of UK Super Bowl coverage with wife's help
Published: Jan, 31 2025 13:22

Tom Brady may be getting $375 million to talk about the NFL on Fox, but it's Sky Sports analyst Ndamukong Suh who could pay larger dividends for a league fixated on growing in the United Kingdom. With the NFL staging 39 regular-season games in London since 2007, experts have been predicting the league's British expansion for years. Commissioner Roger Goodell has even floated the idea of having an entire division in Europe.

 [Ndamukong Suh and his wife Katya are seen during his time with the Los Angeles Rams]
Image Credit: Mail Online [Ndamukong Suh and his wife Katya are seen during his time with the Los Angeles Rams]

It's the media, though, that's tasked with explaining this foreign sport with a familiar name. And it's in that role that Suh — a Super Bowl winner and budding anglophile — has become increasingly familiar to British audiences. 'When I'm in London,' Suh told DailyMail.com, 'I pretty much just walk everywhere. And there's these last couple of weeks a couple people stopped me, like, ''Sky?'' And I'm just like, ''Oh, that's great.'''.

 [The Suhs are seen with the Lombardi Trophy as she was pregnant with the couple's twins]
Image Credit: Mail Online [The Suhs are seen with the Lombardi Trophy as she was pregnant with the couple's twins]

It's a dramatic departure from the United States, where the 6-foot-4, 315-pound All-Pro was best known as a ferocious tackler who incurred thousands in league fines for his brutal style of play. Suh now laughs at that reputation, admitting most think of him as a 'mean, angry football player.'. Ex-NFL player Ndamukong Suh attends the league's Broadcast Bootcamp in 2023. Ndamukong Suh and his wife Katya are seen during his time with the Los Angeles Rams.

 [Suh went through the NFL media boot camp in 2023 alongside ex-teammate Jason Kelce]
Image Credit: Mail Online [Suh went through the NFL media boot camp in 2023 alongside ex-teammate Jason Kelce]

But to British viewers, Suh is the affable Sky Sports analyst working in studio along co-hosts Neil Reynolds, Phoebe Schecter, and journeyman NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. And for his part, Suh has enjoyed opening Britain's eyes to the gridiron, even as he takes baby steps with a country that's still working through the basics. 'I think the UK audience and Europe in general are very sharp and people that can understand pretty much everything,' said Suh, who knows the league can be tough to grasp with its ever-changing rulebook.

 [Ndamukong Suh (far right) has a casual presence on Sky Sports' NFL coverage]
Image Credit: Mail Online [Ndamukong Suh (far right) has a casual presence on Sky Sports' NFL coverage]

'I played 13 plus years and there's rules and things that I don't even understand sometimes, why they're in and [why] they change every single year,' he added. Suh, wife Katya and their twin sons are still based in the United States, splitting their time between Tampa, where he won a ring alongside Brady, and his native Portland, Oregon. But with the league's growing interest in the UK, and his own rising popularity within the country, Suh has admittedly given some thought to crossing the Atlantic.

'We, as a family, were [thinking about moving] but I'm very keen on financial literacy and their taxes are not fun to be a part of,' Suh said of the UK, where federal income taxes can reach as high as 45 percent. 'So I think we'll relinquish that one and stay right where we're at.'. However, that could all change if and when London gets its own team — something Katya would certainly welcome. She and her twins thoroughly enjoyed visiting their dad in London during the weeks he served as an in-studio analyst for Sky Sports. And as long as the kids have a school system in place, Katya explained, she's 'all for it.'.

'I love, love London,' she said, placing extra emphasis on the second 'love.'. The Suhs are seen with the Lombardi Trophy as she was pregnant with the couple's twins. What's more, Suh actually has some family in the Birmingham area, as he learned when an aunt texted his mother to tell her she'd seen him on television. The son of a Cameroonian father and Jamaican mother, Suh always knew his grandparents obtained UK citizenship at some point, but didn't understand his family's full connection to the country until he began working with Sky Sports at the beginning of the 2023 NFL season.

'So I think that's why [I have] such an affinity for the UK and London itself,' he said, 'because I have roots there.'. Media, on the other hand, has been more of an adjustment for Suh, who was admittedly 'resistant' to the idea as he was wrapping up his career in 2021 and 2022. As a player, people regularly told him how 'well spoken' he is, but it wasn't until Katya began encouraging him to look at a career in media that he truly considered the option.

A communications major at Nebraska, where she played basketball for the Cornhuskers and met her future husband, Katya wanted fans to know the real man and not the fearsome defensive tackle. 'I think that people change, and if we were all judged with decisions we made when we were 20-years-old or 22, I think we'd all be a little embarrassed, including myself,' she said. 'So let's figure out a way to better highlight who you actually are and where you want to spend your energy.'.

Suh went through the NFL media boot camp in 2023 alongside ex-teammate Jason Kelce. Ndamukong Suh (far right) has a casual presence on Sky Sports' NFL coverage. The league was happy to accommodate by inviting Suh, his former rival and Eagles teammate Jason Kelce as well as 22 others for the NFL's three-day media boot camp in 2023. Best of all, Suh discovered a fondness for television after some initial hesitation.

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