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.

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.”’

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 

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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.

‘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 embarrᴀssed, 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.

‘It was really exciting to see him come back and be like, ”Hey, this may not be my area,” and then being like, ”Well, I actually…”’ Katya said.

And it wasn’t just Suh who noticed his apтιтude for speaking on air. Steve Wyche, an NFL Network correspondent who was chosen to speak at the workshop, told The Athletic in 2023 that he was impressed with the former Cornhuskers star.

‘I love speaking to him because he’s such a smart, deep dude who wants to share or learn something about everything,’ Wyche said.

‘As for my impressions of him, he would be great — especially as a studio analyst. Suh is a high-IQ thinker whose perceptions of people, situations and the game aren’t common. This is what could set him apart. Once he masters the mechanics of doing TV, he would emerge as a star. He’s not into hyperbole or winging it. He would put in the work and distinguish himself.’

The networks took notice as well.

Suh impressed ESPN brᴀss when he served as a guest analyst on NFL Live, according to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, and NBC Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli gushed over his on-air warmth, which contrasted drastically with his on-field reputation.

‘He’s almost the opposite of what you saw on the field,’ Gaudelli told The Athletic.

‘He seemed to really consider everything before he spoke,’ he continued. ‘He’s a little bit soft-spoken, not this gregarious personality, but he’s got these very expressive eyes and facial expressions. He’s almost the kind of guy that when he says something, you’re going to want to listen to it because you don’t think it’s going to be the standard fare.’

Suh now credits the NFL media boot camp with his on-air poise, which helped him navigate an unfortunately timed fire alarm at the Sky Sports studios earlier this season.

‘People don’t know this, there was a fire alarm in the middle of our of our set, and we had to exit,’ Suh told DailyMail.com. ‘Everybody’s on their phones watching, making sure we’re keeping up with the game, still taking notes, understanding those different pieces. And guess what? We went right into halftime where we got to go talk for almost 15, 20 minutes.

‘We just had to deal with a 20-minute fire alarm, and nobody knew.’

@katyasuh

take it to the KFC Lmao @Jason Banks @Ndamukong Suh #comedy #jasonbankscomedy #football #kfc

♬ original sound – Jason Banks

And that’s not the only media exposure the second-overall pick of the 2010 NFL Draft has going for himself.

The Suhs are both taking part in a series of football-related scenes comedian Jason Banks has scripted and posted on social media. The well-received skits are performed – but not voiced – by Ndamukong and Katya, and typically center around him explaining the finer points of the game to her.

‘That’s illegal formation,’ Suh said to Katya in one sketch with Banks’ voice is dubbed over his own.

‘That’s illegal?’ a stunned Katya gasped with her voice replaced by Banks’. ‘So he’s a criminal!?’

The pieces are quick and fun, but also serve a greater purpose.

‘My wife is, to say the least, very forward thinking, especially when it comes to social media and bringing your presence to life,’ Suh told DailyMail.com.

‘She gets to see a mulтιтude of different personalities that I have… So [fans] being able to see a different side of me – fun loving, exciting – from that standpoint was cool,’ he continued. ‘And I like seeing people embrace it. It’s kind of that shocker, like: ”Oh my God. I didn’t realize how funny he is.”’

And now, thanks to Katya’s encouragement, Suh’s growing fan base is starting to see, understand and appreciate the self-described ‘teddy bear’ and ‘jokester.’

‘My wife definitely pushed me into just being a little bit more open to it,’ Suh said of his media career. ‘You have to put yourself in those uncomfortable decisions to really, actually understand whether you can prosper or not.’