He saved lives, now Cam Sutton is the heart and soul of the Detroit Lions defense

There was no reason to go the beach that day.

It was gray, it was gloomy, it was the end of winter, but Cam Sutton and his best friend, Pat Petty, had some free time before Petty’s flight home to Georgia so they grabbed a bite to eat and stopped by the bay on their way to the Tampa, Florida, airport.

Sutton and Petty have known each other since middle school. They were rivals in rec league football who went on to become teammates in high school. They played AAU basketball together. And on this otherwise ordinary day in 2021, they had just started walking down the beach when they saw a man standing shin-deep in the water, punching the air and cursing out loud at no one in particular.

The man was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, wailing as the waves splashed around him. Worried about his safety and state of mind, Sutton and Petty calmly approached him and talked him back onto the sand.

The two friends spent the next hour or so consoling the man, and talking him out of a very dark space.

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Sutton said the experience was powerful. He felt called to the beach that day to help a stranger in need.

But he downplayed the magnitude of the incident at first before confirming Petty’s recollection of the man’s troubles. The man, Petty said, had lost a loved one to gun violence and was in the water that day vowing revenge. He wanted to kill the people responsible for his loved one’s death, then take his own life.

“He was contemplating going and shooting people and stuff, and we kind of talked him out of it and calmed him down, let him know that it’s more to live for and just to live for that person that he lost,” Petty said. “It was crazy, man. He cried to us, like strangers. It was a beautiful thing, though, that we could save him and kind of pull him off the edge.

“He was talking about like murder-suicide, go and handle whoever did that to his people and then take his own life. That’s how he was talking.”

Sutton, then a cornerback with the Pittsburgh Steelers and now in his first season with the Detroit Lions, reassured the man he had a greater purpose in life. They talked about their families — Sutton was a new father at the time; the man, seemingly in his 30s, had older children — and Sutton offered to continue the conversation over lunch.

The man declined, and when Sutton got up to take Petty to the airport, everyone exchanged hugs.

“You just never know what someone is going through,” Sutton said. “(To be able to offer) words of encouragement to be able to de-escalate a situation like that, cause God knows we don’t need no more mass shootings and all that stuff, let alone, you just don’t want to see that for people. I don’t want to see that for people. I don’t want to see people down, hurting. We all go through our own things, but there’s definitely more positive (things in life).”

‘Very inspiring’

Since he was young, Sutton has always had a special ability to connect with people and push them towards a common goal.

His father, Dalton, was a computer engineer. His mother, Nedra, was a respiratory nurse. And Sutton grew up playing three sports — baseball, basketball and football — in his native Jonesboro, Georgia, from the time he was 4.

In baseball, Sutton was a good enough center fielder and leadoff hitter to attract draft interest from the San Diego Padres. In basketball, he made the rounds on the AAU circuit with the Georgia Cavaliers. And he went undefeated as a middle school quarterback before making his name on defense in high school.

Petty, who played running back and safety at Jonesboro High, said Sutton was so laser-focused on becoming a professional athlete that he often eschewed late-night parties to fit in early-morning workouts and attend weekend camps.

“A lot of the guys that were into street stuff and things of that nature, Cam was able to change the whole culture of school with the college coaches and the recruitment stature that he was at when we were in high school,” Petty said. “It made everybody around him want to tighten up, go to class, do their work. Take SATs. Like we didn’t care about that stuff until Cam had Nick Saban, the coaches from Georgia coming into the school. Like we didn’t see stuff like that growing up, so that was very inspiring.”

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Sutton signed with Tennessee out of high school and started 12 games in the secondary as a true freshman. The Steelers took him in the third round of the 2017 NFL draft, and after six seasons in Pittsburgh, the Lions made him the cornerstone of their rebuilt secondary when they signed him to a three-year free agent deal in March.

Sutton has played all 331 defensive snaps this season for a Lions team that ranks seventh in yards allowed. He has 16 tackles while rarely being challenged downfield. He’s been a steadying presence in a secondary that already has lost its two other biggest free agent additions, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Emmanuel Moseley, to likely season-ending injuries.

And his contributions off the field have been even more important to the Lions’ 4-1 start heading into Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium, a few miles from the beach incident where Sutton and Petty saved multiple lives.

“He’s been great,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “I think that’s just what it is, he’s just been — he’s been a steady, reliable piece for us.

“He’s somebody that you don’t have to worry about him handling his business. You don’t have to worry about if he’s going to be in the right position or mental errors aren’t going to show up with this guy. It’s just, he’s just dependable and he’s no different than any other player. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, but he’s always going to strive to be perfect and we know exactly what he is. I know exactly what he is and that gives me comfort.”

Considered an extension of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin on the field in Pittsburgh, Sutton has achieved the same guru status in Detroit.

When the Lions returned from their offseason break for spring workouts, Sutton took every member of the team’s secondary to Eddie V’s, the swanky seafood and steakhouse in Troy. Fresh off signing a three-year, $33 million contract, he footed the bill for the night and earned the respect of his younger teammates not so much for his willingness to splurge on their appetites but his want to get to know them as people.

“I can’t tell you what the bill was, but I know he got it for sure,” second-year defensive back Chase Lucas said. “He paid the whole thing and it was just cool for like a first interaction for like a vet player coming in off a good deal, that’s just dope. Like he didn’t have to do that.

“Just to be able to mesh with people and me being a younger guy in the league and having a dude like that be able to come put his arm around me, it’s a great feeling, bro. And especially out on the field.”

Sutton gifted cleats to Lucas this summer after Lucas made an off-the-cuff remark about how much he liked Sutton’s shoes. The defensive backs have made their position group dinners a weekly occurrence in season; veteran safety Tracy Walker, another one of the group’s leaders, hosted the unit at his house Thursday.

And when Sutton started holding extra morning film sessions to get a jump on the Lions defense and weekly game plans, he got perfect attendance from his fellow defensive backs.

“He’s just been like a big brother to me,” said third-year cornerback Jerry Jacobs, who leads the Lions with three interceptions through five games. “We didn’t have a lot of dudes last year like that, and to learn stuff from him and get the knowledge since he’s been in the game for seven years is amazing. He’s just a really amazing big brother.”

Man of action

Truth be told, that beach day two years ago wasn’t the first time Sutton may have saved a life.

A year or two earlier, Sutton was grilling on his patio in the Citrus Park area of Tampa when he said he heard a loud noise out front.

He ran towards the commotion and saw a car that had crashed into a cement median. The car was smoking and wheezing, its driver’s door was open, and Sutton and another good Samaritan from his building, a firefighter in training, approached the car from the passenger side to see if anyone was still inside.

The driver was slumped over the center console, and moments after Sutton said he and the other man pulled the woman to safety, the car’s engine burst into flames.

A week or so later, Sutton ran into the man from his building again, and the man told Sutton his commander wanted to give Sutton an award for helping the woman in the accident. Sutton declined, saying he wanted to remain anonymous and just did what anyone would in that situation.

“If I could live under a rock I would. I promise you, I would,” Sutton said. “I wouldn’t even want to be bothered. But at the same time, I appreciate, all that stuff I just obviously feel it comes with however that comes. I don’t ever press for it. But again, just be an extension (of my upbringing) and then obviously just with how I perceive and go about my life and go about my every day, how I’m just doing my duty as a human being to be the best I can, individually and for the people around me, and hope that it’s obviously reciprocated the same way.”

The Lions are certainly appreciative of Sutton’s contributions, and he for his spot as the No. 1 cornerback on one of the NFL’s best teams.

He’ll spend most of this Sunday covering star Tampa receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, all the while knowing he won’t be defined by what he does on the field.

“When it’s time to go he leads by example,” Lucas said. “He doesn’t need to talk much and I feel that. I feel like a lot of people talk more than show action, and I feel like he’s the opposite. He’s going to show action and he’s going to talk less.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

Next up: Buccaneers

Matchup: Lions (4-1) at Tampa Bay (3-1).

Kickoff: 4:25 p.m. Sunday; Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida.

TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1).

Line: Lions by 3.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Cam Sutton is quiet, quintessential leader of Detroit Lions defense