Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata are best friends. So with Ngata suspended for the remainder of the regular season, Suggs sent his B.F.F. a special little TV message Sunday in Miami.
After notching a sack in the second quarter of Sunday's game in Miami, Suggs did a special dance as a shout out to Ngata's Polynesian roots.
"It's called the Haka. It's a Polynesian dance, Tongan dance," Suggs told me after the game.
Since I'm a world dance expert who also happens to have the magic of Wikipedia at my fingertips, the haka is a traditional ancestral dance of the Maori people of New Zealand. Here's a video of New Zealand’s national basketball team doing it.
Ngata's family roots are in Tonga. But hey, it still technically works since New Zealand is part of Polynesia.
"I did it for him because it's the first time I've ever lined up without him," Suggs said. "I wanted to salute him. I wanted him to know that I miss him, and we're going to hold it down till he gets back."
Suggs isn't technically right on that one. While it's rare, Suggs has definitely played without Ngata before. He did it just last year in Chicago, and there were those three years when Suggs was in the league before Ngata came around. But I know what you mean, Sizzle.
Since I'm being super technical and annoying about a dance, Suggs should have performed the Kailao, a traditional Tongan war dance that Ngata himself performed at his Third Annual Haloti Ngata Family Foundation Luau three weeks ago.
I expect Suggs to begin practicing immediately.
