Nick Fairley on being called ‘dirty’: Take pride in it
By Mike Dyce
Earlier this week, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders made some very direct comments directed at the Detroit Lions and their defensive tackle duo.
“You’ve seen stuff on tape,” Sanders told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “You know about Ndamukong Suh. He’s paid the NFL offices a lot of money. It’s evident. Everyone knows who the dirtiest player in the league is right now. And he takes pride in that. He takes pride in being one of the dirtiest players because on defense you have to have that mentality. But we’re not going to get bullied.”
Detroit Lions defensive tackle Nick Fairley agreed, you have to take pride in it.
“You got to take pride,” Fairley said, via the Detroit Free Press. “As a D-line, it’s down and dirty down in the trenches. We know that. When you’re down in there, putting your hand down in the dirt, you just got to go, pin your ears back and go.”
While he calls it dirty in the trenches, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he thinks the Lions defensive tackles are dirty players.
“I wouldn’t say we were dirty,” Fairley said. “We’re a hard-playing group, hard-playing duo that when we’re in between those lines, we do whatever it takes to win.”