When the NFL announced its three-game suspension of Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, the league made general reference to his multiple offenses for personal fouls and sportsmanship-related rules violations in recent seasons.”
With lingering criticism of an appeals process that lacked transparency and that was tainted by an apparent conflict of interest the full history of Al-Shaair’s on-field infractions is emerging, unofficially.
PFT has obtained the full list. There are 13, dating back to 2020. Only seven of them resulted in fines.
Three happened this year. First, Al-Shaair engaged in a Week 2 sideline fight against the Bears. He was fined $11,817, and it was not appealed. Second, he hit Titans running back Tony Pollard out of bounds in Week 12. The $11,255 fine is pending. Another one happened during the Jaguars game on Sunday. Al-Shaair was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, but not fined. (At least not yet.)
During the 2023 season, Al-Shaair was fined $13,934 for a blow to the head/neck of a quarterback. He also was fined $10,927 for a face mask foul.
During the 2022 season, Al-Shaair was fined $11,139 for fighting. (It was reduced on appeal to $8,911.)
During the 2021 season, Al-Shaair was disciplined, without an actual fine imposed, for four instances of illegal use of the helmet. On one occasion, he was fined $41,200 for use of helmet. (It was affirmed on appeal.)
During the 2020 season, Al-Shaair was disciplined once for use of helmet, without a fine. On another occasion that year, he was fined $4,000 for use of helmet. (The fine was reduced to $3,200 on appeal.)
As to the seven instances on which Al-Shaair was disciplined for use of helmet, he was fined only twice. The lack of fines hints at a broader effort by the league, during that time period, to aggressively enforce the rule against lowering the helmet and making forcible contact with an opponent. Common sense suggests that, if Al-Shaair was the only one doing it, he would have been fined more than two out of seven times.
Common sense also suggests that the league is reeling a bit from the blowback to the Al-Shaair suspension, both from the Texans and elsewhere. But it’s deserved. Instead of simply focusing on the blatantly illegal hit on Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the league has tried to paint Al-Shaair as a villain.
Why not just suspend him for the hit, without a P.R. effort aimed at making him look worse? The hit speaks for itself. Late slide or not, Al-Shaair came in hot with a forearm to the head of Lawrence. Al-Shaair could have tried to avoid Lawrence. Instead, Al-Shaair embraced the opportunity to make a Bednarik-style hit.
That should be enough for the suspension. The rest of it is just noise. And now there’s more noise, in the form of a history of discipline that looks a lot worse on the surface than it probably is especially if the 2021 discipline (without fines) points to a broader philosophical issue as to when and how to punish players for hits that are inherent to playing football.