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For really the entire 21st century, there has not been a force in professional football quite like the Baltimore Ravens. Since the 2000 season, only the Patriots have won more Super Bowls, and while the Pats built their franchise around a golden boy quarterback, the Ravens have always been about defense. Terrell Suggs was a pillar of that defense for 16 sizzling years. He joined the squad as a first-round pick in 2003, and by the time he left Baltimore in 2019, his resume included a Defensive Player of the Year award, seven Pro Bowls, the franchise sack record, and a 2012 Super Bowl ring he won just months after tearing his Achilles.
Nowadays, he’s mostly chilling at home in Phoenix. His daughter spends her summers playing for Team Durant and Suggs, who was always one of the scariest dudes on the field, promises he’s not one of those sports parents who’s always yelling at the refs. That gridiron intensity is what made him so beloved in Baltimore, though, and this weekend he will officially become one of the city’s immortals. At halftime of the Ravens’ game against the Lions, all eyes will be on T-Sizzle as his name is added to the Ring of Honor at M&T Bank Stadium. Ahead of the ceremony, Suggs gave us a call.
It was a phone call out of the blue. They was like, “Yeah, um, we just want you to know that we’re going to induct you in the Ring of Honor this year.” I was like, for real? I’m one of those guys that was really humble, you know what I mean? I didn’t expect that call to come. It’s one of those things you hope for, but you’re not really sitting around waiting on a phone call saying you’ll get inducted. Fortunately, mine’s is coming up.
Not at all. As Ravens, we never played for those kinds of accolades or achievements. We played for each other, loved the game, and loved what we were doing. It all just happened to pan out this way. I’m fortunate enough to be branded a Raven for life.
You just never know. You never know who makes those decisions or what they’re thinking or what goes into it. You don’t know! With something that’s not in your hands, you don’t really want to have your mind occupied with it. It was more like, okay! I guess that’s pretty awesome!
Definitely our battles against the Steelers. Opening day 2011, after they had just knocked us out of the playoffs, that would be my second favorite. But my first is Ray Lewis’ last ride, when we went on the Super Bowl run, when we all came out the tunnel for the last time with each other. That was a playoff game against the Colts.
It went hand-in-hand, especially with guys like Hines Ward and James Harrison. We didn’t like them. It wasn’t a hate, like if we saw them on the street we weren’t going to get in a brawl. Nah, it wasn’t that kind of hate. It was a football rivalry. Their flag vs. our flag kind of thing.
Definitely coming out with the gladiator mask. Definitely Jarret Johnson hitting Hines Ward. Definitely Bart Scott hitting Ben Roethlisberger. Definitely Haloti [Ngata] breaking Ben’s nose. We had some battles! Yeah, they’re our rivals. Yeah, we don’t like them. But we had a tremendous amount of respect for each other because we brought so much out of each other, you know what I mean? I hear it all the time—especially from Steeler fans, oddly enough—we miss the old days! We miss the battles! It was good to be appreciated.
It’s not the same!
I don’t know! A lot of us got our reputation from our style of play. That style of play isn’t really welcomed in the game anymore. I would have gotten a lot of fines! So, I don’t know. Are we still having this conversation if I played today? It’s one of those big what ifs.
I never got fined for hits. Everything we did was pretty legal. I got fined for little stuff like socks and shoes not being within the team’s color code! But big hits were kind of welcomed when we played. The league is more offensively-driven now. There’s more rules against the defense than against the offense. They want to see touchdowns now! They don’t want to see big hits, and it’s taken the game out of the defenders’ hands. They want to regulate it so you see as many scores as possible.
It’s buddy-buddy now! You can be as marketable as you can be and it’s not—really the only defensive stars are the T.J. Watt kid and Micah Parsons. And DBs [defensive backs] because DBs stop the receivers. So, like, a Fred Warner—even Aaron Donald, who’s one of the most dominant players of this decade—they shy away from them because of the way the game is going. They don’t want ferocious anymore.
Never! The only things I knew about Baltimore were definitely The Wire and Ray Lewis. When I got there, it was like a defensive mecca. If you were a defensive player, this is where you wanted to be. The identity and the culture there was everything that I wanted from an organization, and the expectations they had of me were what I had of myself. It was a dream that I didn’t know I had.
They did! I didn’t think about that until you brought it up. We were the only team with a band! That’s crazy, I forgot all about that. I don’t know if they still have it, but we did have a band. You hear all the stadium music, and you don’t notice that other stadiums don’t have a band. But I did notice we had one!
It was chosen for me. When I first got drafted, I wanted 56. You know, like Lawrence Taylor. But Ed Hartwell had it. As a rookie, it’s not like I had already established a number or had the opportunity to buy it from Hartwell. I had to take the next available number. All the linebackers were in the 50s, so I just wanted to fit in and took 55.
But what I noticed through the years, everyone that had a double number—Jason Taylor had 99, [Junior] Seau was 55, Willie McGinest was 55. It was like, alright! You can be part of the 55 club!
When you mention those guys, three of them [Lewis, Ed Reed, and Jonathan Ogden] are already in the Hall of Fame! So, I’m flattered. It’s very humbling. Like, I’m going up there with them? I haven’t fully grasped it. It’s still shocking. I guess when I see it up there, it’ll really hit home. I’m still taking it all in, man. It’s an incredible thing to have your name up there with those guys’ names. I still think the world of those guys. They were gods of their time. I played with the best left tackle ever. I played with the best middle linebacker ever. I played with the best safety ever.
We text every now and then. It’s one of those relationships where we can go months without talking to each other, but once we do, we pick right back up where we left off.
Yeah, definitely! I had met Ray a couple of months earlier, before the draft. We did a Madden commercial together. He asked me about breaking the sack record in college, and then he was like, “You might get drafted to us!” I asked, “What number are y’all?” He said tenth. I thought, nah. I’mma be gone way before tenth! I knew the Cardinals drafted sixth. So I told him, “Y’all ain’t got no chance.” But when the Cardinals traded out of their pick, I was like, Oh shit! I may end up in Baltimore! Sure enough, they called my name, and the rest is history.
But when I got to camp, Ray Lewis at that time was considered the best player in the league. You know what I’m saying? It was his league. So, to get drafted to his team was stunning. Ed Reed was making a name for himself. Ray won Defensive Player of the League in 2003 and then Ed won the next year! It was definitely intimidating walking up in there.
He took, like, a big brother role. He was giving me advice about what to do at camp and all of that. We had so much fun doing that commercial, and then when I got to camp it was like, this is the Ray Lewis everyone talks about. He was all about business.
I held out for contract reasons, and on my first day of camp I was doing an interview and he threw a pie in my face!
The way the Ravens handled it, I didn’t totally agree with it. This is our first ever MVP! Me, Ray, and Ed won Defensive Player of the Year, but Lamar was the first MVP! I’m happy he got paid, but he gave them a deal. When I see his contract, I look at Patrick Mahomes. Kansas City didn’t waste any time locking up Mahomes. They were like, this is our quarterback. They showed him that they believed in him. [Former Ravens’ general manager] Ozzie [Newsome] would have never let it get as far as it did. He would have been like, this is our guy. Boom, let’s get a deal done. Like I said, I’m happy he got paid, I just wish the Ravens would have handled it better.
The fans are always going to take the side of the organization, but you have to understand that this is Lamar’s turn. It’s his deal. It’s good to see both sides get a deal done, I just think it could have been handled better on the Ravens’ side. They have a history of taking care of all of us. But, it all worked out. Lamar eventually is going to end up in the Ring of Honor himself.
I think they’re going to make a run at it, but they may be a year out from actually making the Super Bowl. There’s a lot of new pieces. It usually takes a year of chemistry to gel. But if they make it this year? Even better, they’re a year ahead of schedule. They gotta stay healthy too, the NFL schedule is grueling. The NFL script that everyone talks about? We’ll see how the script plays out.
I’m really glued to the couch on Saturdays. Those college games are very exciting. In the pros, I watch them, but you pretty much know who’s going to win. There’s really no surprises. But Aaron Rodgers getting hurt on the fourth play of the season, that was kind of surprising. I watch a lot of football, but primarily on Saturday. College is so unpredictable. NFL? You pretty much know.
I don’t know! Achilles are brutal, man. Brutal. The human body is still the human body, even with the advancements in medicine and procedures. Everybody would love to see him come back in a couple months, I think that’d be great! It seems very optimistic. But with Achilles, it’s your spring, it’s your explosion. He may come back, but he may lose a step, and he’s already at the age that he’s at.
Quitting while you’re ahead is not the same thing as quitting. I would like to see Aaron come back and play, but I think he takes the money and runs. I would! I had a very good surgeon, Dr. Bob Anderson out of Charlotte. I knew we were on the brink of the Super Bowl when I tore mine. I had just won Defensive Player of the Year and we had just lost in the AFC Championship. So, I knew the team was going to do something special. I had to hurry up and get back! I didn’t want them to do it without me. My pain tolerance just shot up. I pushed and pushed and pushed. It was a mind thing. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Fortunately when I tore mine, I was 30. I couldn’t imagine being 38 or 39 trying to recover from an Achilles. Me, as a person who went through it? I’m like, ahh. We may have seen our last sighting of Aaron Rodgers. He got $75 million for 75 seconds [of play]! That’s a million dollars a second, more money than Floyd Mayweather! Ride off in the sunset with 75 mil? That’s not bad.
This interview has been edited and condensed