'This Is A Wall' Nike Ad Featuring Suh Removed From Building Near Ford Field
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - In what some Detroit Lions fans could interpret as a sign that All-Pro defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh will be signing somewhere other than Detroit when he hits free agency Tuesday, a giant Nike banner ad that featured Suh has been removed from a building in downtown Detroit.
A person at Your Personal Vault, the storage company that occupies the ground floor of the building on which the banner hung, said the ad was taken down Wednesday.
The banner had been up since September, when it was affixed to the seven-story building that sits at 432 Mechanic Street, about two blocks away from Ford Field.
Michael Cook of the Detroit Media Group, the company that hung the banner, said the removal of the ad had nothing to do with Suh's uncertain future.
The ad had only been paid to run between September and December, Cook said, and since then it had been on override, meaning the company was waiting to take it down until it had other copy to also remove, since removal requires the rental of a crane. Detroit Media Group got a request several weeks ago for the ad to be taken down whenever the company got around to it.
"There's probably no juice behind it," Cook said with a laugh.
The Lions have tried to re-sign Suh for more than a year, but they only have exclusive negotiating rights with him for one more day, and then any team can contact Suh's agent Jimmy Sexton and begin negotiating with him.
Suh could sign with another team as soon as 4 p.m. Tuesday, when free agency officially begins.
