NFL Needs to Suspend Azeez Al-Shaair to Set Clear Boundary on Dirty Hits

The league has officiated illegal plays inconsistently this season, but an example should be made after the play that gave Trevor Lawrence a concussion.

Lawrence was knocked out of the game with a concussion after sliding down on this play / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

When Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair dove at Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on Sunday and whacked the defenseless quarterback with the hard plastic brace on his elbow, it was one of the first times the NFL viewing public seemed uniform in agreement that a player should have been thrown out of the game. 

The debate, for now, is whether Al-Shaair will receive a longer suspension than someone such as Danny Trevathan, a Chicago Bears linebacker who, in 2017, speared Davante Adams while Adams was in the grasp of another player and was forced to sit out a pair of games. My thought is that Al-Shaair shouldn’t play again in 2024. While a small chorus of people will suggest Lawrence was out of his mind for attempting a play like this, was late to slide and invited the contact because he was attempting to reach a first down—a tired players-only argument that can often be more ridiculous and overprotective than it needs to be—this feels like an obvious opportunity for the league to make an example out of a singular moment and regain control of the weaponization of equipment before it occurs in a stand-alone playoff game and invites anyone and everyone to get the wrong impression.  

Trevor Lawrence was hit late while trying to slide, which led to exchanges between Jags and Texans players. pic.twitter.com/34jwjiDLcN

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) December 1, 2024

While this play was not a direct cause and effect, it has been a scattershot season for the league, its officiating of clearly dirty plays and also preventing them from happening. Al-Shaair, a few weeks ago, got up from a sideline scrum and cold-cocked Bears running back Roschon Johnson in the face despite Johnson having not been in the play. He was fined a paltry $11,000, but not suspended. Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell noted that the penalization of such plays is dependent on what time a team is playing as much as anything else, after a game in which Brian Branch was ejected a few hours after Miami Dolphins safety Jordan Poyer levied a very similar hit but was allowed to remain on the field. But even in a sleepy Week 13 affair between Jacksonville and Houston, that moment between Al-Shaair and Lawrence was so jarring that it brings the discussion of violent hits back to the foreground and forces public action. 

Suspending Al-Shaair can at least accomplish one thing: having this play shown in every facility this week and becoming a point of emphasis. Of course, the NFL often winks, nods and posts on social media when a quarterback fakes like he’s going to the ground and utilizes the threat of a slide or a run out of bounds to his advantage. While Lawrence was absolutely not doing that in this instance, it’s a good opportunity for the NFL to get that under control as well and reset crystal clear expectations for both offensive and defensive players as the NFL steps onto a larger stage and enters its playoff phase.  

As I’ve written in the past, this probably will not happen because if the NFL really wanted to reform its officiating processes and create a sharper and more sensible operation, the league would do it. The decision on the Al-Shaair suspension will eventually be another piece of the content machine that the league depends on to dominate every facet of the sports conversation, more than a precedent set down from on high to make the game function in a manner that makes sense to us and to the players, the latter of whom oftentimes find themselves helpless and at the whim of someone’s individual, situational judgement. 

Key word: oftentimes. Al-Shaair’s hit will, for the lot of us, be placed in a different bucket than many of the bang-bang plays we can all reason are the result of the world’s greatest athletes trying to tackle each other at speeds unfathomable to rulemakers when the game was first invented. 

This one checked all the boxes, which, again, are sadly part of the equation: Al-Shaair knocked a franchise quarterback out of the game. This alters the entire scope of the decision and the parameters from which it will be judged. This has a profound impact on how someone bets a game, on fantasy football and, of course, in the visceral sense. Jaguars fans were literally throwing trash at Al-Shaair as he walked off the field (with Al-Shaair screaming back at them along the way). 

The opportunity to make it mean something now exists. I’m not optimistic, but an entire league of players and coaches awaits a decision that can at least provide some firm boundaries on a nebulous situation.