You know how your little brother used to mess up every family photo by sticking out his tongue, giving grandma bunny ears, or making grotesque faces? Well, then Terrell Suggs is the little brother of the Baltimore Ravens — and it’s totally awesome.
In the outtakes from the Ravens’ Team Photo Day, the other players are trying to look pleasant or tough. They fold their arms and stare at the camera as if its the opposing team. They squint into the sun and smile tepidly, like people whose cheeks are tired from saying cheese all day. And then there’s Suggs. He strikes a pose. He smizes seductively. He plaintively gazes off into the distance. He switches jerseys with a teammate. He smiles beatifically. He rests a foot on a fellow teammate.
This is a bit of a tradition for Suggs, according to Ryan Mink, who blogs at BaltimoreRavens.com: “Trying to take a legitimate team photo without Suggs doing something goofy is nearly impossible. The hall of team pictures through the years shows the evidence. Either Suggs is striking some crazy pose or he’s been photoshopped to make sure he looks normal. For example, the team photo has the same picture of Suggs in 2008 and 2010, clear evidence that he did something so ludicrous in 2010 that they couldn’t use the photo.”
I think it’s adorable; team photographer Phil Hoffmann probably wants to strangle the guy. Apparently Hoffmann’s preferred trick is to pretend he’s going to take the picture on the count of three, but actually take it earlier. (But then you just get a bunch of pictures of football players looking at the ground or scratching their noses, as evidenced here.) But after Ray Lewis’s injury and a sad loss to Houston, we’re happy to see the Ravens smiling about anything; keep it up, Suggs.
