OUTLAWS, Part II: Why Azeez Al-Shaair and these Houston Texans 'savages' seek and destroy
He's been painted a villain by the NFL, by everyone. That's fine. He's not changing and neither is this entire Texans defense. Their sights are set on Super Bowl glory.
Read Part I here
His home destroyed, Azeez Al-Shaair had no clue where he’d sleep the next night.
The only item he rescued? A pair of Nike slides.
Officially homeless, his family jammed into an extended-stay motel on the fringes of Tampa at $370 per week. Considering Dad left two years prior, Mom was on her own. All 11 shared one bed, one pullout couch and whatever floor space remained. Al-Shaair, of course, slept on the floor — if he was able to sleep at all — and then took the city bus 2 ½ hours to school. It took so long because he needed to drop his two little brothers off at elementary school along the way. He wore the same clothes, couldn’t help but doze off in class and tried his best not to eat his lunch because he knew the little ones back home needed food more than him.
Al-Shaair struck up a relationship with the lunch lady. Thankfully, “Ms. B” would hook him up. He stuffed his backpack with whatever he could to tote home. (Chocolate milks were a go-to.)
Joy came in watching his mother’s favorite team: the Baltimore Ravens. His eyes were naturally fixed on menacing, Canton-bound linebacker Ray Lewis.
Football was his release because, on a field, nothing else mattered.
Everybody wore the same helmet, same pads. Al-Shaair always had time to think those long bus rides.
He vividly remembers closing his eyes and dreaming of better days.
“Being in the NFL,” Al-Shaair says. “Making it. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I just believed.”
College ball became a real possibility. He chose Florida Atlantic. Everyone soon realized Al-Shaair had zero off switch, which fueled both fights with teammates at practice and 3 a.m. film sessions on his own. His intensity never waned. Two hundred miles across the state, cockroaches scurrying across the floor, his family’s poverty never improved. Al-Shaair feared those two brothers he saved from the flames would go down the wrong path, so he had them move into his off-campus apartment and basically juggled D-I athletics, schoolwork and fatherhood all at once.
He led the Conference USA in tackles as a junior, tore his ACL as a senior, underwent surgery on Nov. 6, 2018 and — to the shock of NFL teams — performed in linebacker drills at his pro day 140 days later.
Hell no, he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.
Each snap is a gift.
Hostility must be inside of you. When ink’s put to paper on that first NFL contract, it’s too late. This cannot be coached. This cannot be purchased. The only way a defense enters an all-time-great stratosphere is if it can effectively find players who were baptized in everything that makes football football long ago.
A prerequisite to call this cathedral off Kirby Drive home.
Head coach DeMeco Ryans, DC Matt Burke and GM Nick Caserio all agreed on a specific template, as detailed in Part 1. But such a blueprint only works if they’re able can find authentic desperados. (Spoiler: They have in spades.) Houston (12-5) now storms into the playoffs off nine straight wins. First up, Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7) on Monday night. Very good teams across the league struggle with their identity — not here. The Texans stare into the mirror and know exactly who they are as a team.
For better or worse.
All of this could’ve taken a (very) hard turn a (very) different direction late last season.
Al-Shaair and this entire defense reached a boiling point. He felt like that 12-year-old kid all over again, staring at a fire, wondering what was next. He was declared the sport’s villain. He’s still considered that villain in many eyes. If Al-Shaair walks down the street anywhere in Duval County, he may want to bring a bodyguard or two.
Tears. Depression. Excruciating pain. The last month of last season pushed his sanity to the brink.
“Anything you experience in your life,” Al-Shaair says, “while it might be tough, you know that there’s a way out. There’s another side to it.”
Now, he’s back in the playoffs with a chance to script his legacy and, most importantly, this defense’s legacy.
We’re about to see if an approach unlike any other in the NFL can pay off.
No sixth sense is required to find true “savages” in this building. They’re everywhere. Extend a hand, introduce yourself and — within seconds — players share an origin story that explains exactly why they’ve been chosen.
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Kamari Lassiter started playing tackle football at four years old.
Yes, four.
Houston’s scowling 6-foot, 200-pound corner first strapped on pads for the local “Savannah Stars” in Georgia. It was love at first crash vs. 5- and 6-year-olds. And the temperament we see today — a mentality “to kill” — is a direct reflection of watching his mother juggle multiple jobs as a kid. She worked nonstop, so he felt the intrinsic need to pour himself into something. That something was football.
“Every emotion, every bit of energy,” Lassiter adds, “I put it all on the field.”
Into middle school, the blunt force behind his tackling style was so jarring he gave it a nickname: The Kamari Crack. “Every time I used to hit someone,” Lassiter says, “it used to be like a big ‘Pow!’” He smacks his hands together and the noise echoes. When Mom got a promotion, they moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala., and he developed a new signature move: a WWE-style suplex. Lassiter enjoyed wrapping both arms around ball-carriers, lifting their body high into the sky and crashing them into the turf. “Pick ‘em up, dump ‘em,” he says with a grin. “That’s how we were taught to play the game.”
Through high school, he’d never get flagged for going full Brock Lesnar. His first collegiate game at Georgia was another story. In the second quarter of a 49-3 massacre of the Oregon Ducks, Lassiter suplexed a running back and was called for unnecessary roughness the second tackle of his college career. An infraction that easily could’ve banished him to his head coach’s doghouse. It did not. Kirby Smart loved this. Lassiter developed into one of the best defensive players in the SEC — totaling 86 tackles (8 ½ for loss), one pick and 15 PBUs — and, yes, it’s easy to see how Cupid’s arrow struck the Texans through those pre-draft interviews.
“I give my life to football,” Lassiter says. “Day-in, day-out, football is always on my mind. Whenever I get on the field, I’m finally at peace. Even though it’s a chaotic game, I can be myself. I can yell as loud as I want to. I can talk how I want to. I can hit somebody as hard as I need to. I can celebrate with my teammates. Talk trash. There’s just so many things that you can do.”
Rule to rule, he sees a league trying to sell its product as “safe.” It is not, and that’s OK.
His voice speeds up.
Lassiter drops a truth bomb of a PSA that won’t be rolled out during a Super Bowl commercial break. It should.
“Football is a violent game,” Lassiter says. “That was the way it was intended to be played. I grew up hitting hard and playing the game in a violent manner. Doing everything to the fullest. There’s going to be full-speed collisions. There are ways to hit correctly, but it was always intended to be violent.”
He knows opposing quarterbacks will avoid All-Pro, lockdown No. 1 CB Derek Stingley like the plague, and that creates opportunity. This season, Lassiter responded with four interceptions, 17 pass breakups and a team-high 91 tackles (seven for loss) all while gritting through pain that’d shelf others. When we chatted, his foot was in a walking boot. Ryans has called him one of the toughest players he’s ever encountered, period. A player he wants to build this whole team around.
There’s a chance you saw E.J. Speed’s hit stick on Monday Night Football vs. Tampa Bay in September.
There’s a better chance you heard it from two bedrooms over during the nightly witching hour. A textbook “tackle,” this is not. The Texans linebacker more so trucks directly through poor 170-pound Kameron Johnson with a vicious shoulder. Three distinct sounds then air on the ESPN broadcast: the loud pop of plastic, a roaring “Whoaaa!” from the home crowd and astonishment from Hall of Famer Troy Aikman.
Four-year-olds aren’t lining up for hitting drills nationwide and even us purists must agree that’s for the best. But when I tell Speed that my 4-year-old enjoys playing with the Nerf football in the basement to the tune of Sam Spence’s NFL Films classics, his eyes light up. He leans in as if prepared to reveal the sport’s greatest secret.
“I’m going to tell you the crazy part about hitting,” Speed says. “It’s not the actual contact. It’s the pop.”
Speed smacks his hands together.
“The hit doesn’t hurt,” he says. “It’s the pop that shifts you into a shock.”
At the pop of a collision, most young players close their eyes. Force yourself to keep your eyes open through the pop and you quickly realize hits do not hurt at all. That’s why Speed insists all fathers should invest in a blocking pad and take their rambunctious 4- and 5-year-olds into the backyard. Far back as he can recall in Fort Worth, Texas, he crashed into one. Eyes wide open, he learned to blast through the fear of a hit and own that glorious pop.
At home, like Al-Shaair, his eyes were then glued to Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and the Ravens the 2000s.
On the field, at age 8, whoever had the biggest hit on his youth team received $20. His team was full of fearless hitters. Speed took that $20 bill home three times. But his brother, a beast, was stiff competition. The collision he remembers most occurred in a scrimmage against the older kids. He missed a tackle, Dad got on him and Speed started crying. (“I was like, ‘Bro, the next person who runs through this joint…’”) When he met the kid in the hole next time? “POW!” says Speed, smacking his hands again. “We dang near knocked each other out. I felt the vibration through my helmet. It was dope.”
He also has “Arthur” and “Fubu” to thank. In one angle tackling drill, an 8-year-old Speed faced 12-year-olds. Dad was his coach and Dad knew intermingling teams from different age brackets would toughen up his boy. On his first rep, EJ was scared. EJ sheepishly stepped outside of the cones. Dad called him out. (Again.) Son lined back up. (Again.) Seated here in his Texans locker, Speed recreates the scene with his two arms pointing different directions. A kid named “Arthur” approached him from one angle and a kid wearing a Fubu shirt over his pads approached from another to tackle him.
This time, Speed held his ground and kept his eyes open through the pop.
“When I tell you they killed me, bro? They smashed me,” Speed says. “Boom, boom! It was a hit. But I got up. And after that, I didn’t care about contact. … I was like, ‘It don’t hurt?!’”
Speed hasn’t looked back. He developed into a college prospect and decided to go the D-II route at nearby Tarleton State because his brother was battling cancer. One month after Signing Day, his brother passed away. Paul’s memory stays on his mind to this day. (“He’s with me all the time.”)
All defensive players were selected for a reason. Linebacker Henry To’oto’o looks around the locker room and sees characters “all over the damn place.” Playing movie director, he gives everyone a role. Anderson is the emotional leader. Stingley and Jalen Pitre are quiet leaders. Tim Settle loves to talk. There’s a player on the practice squad whose jokes are A+. He supplies comic relief.
Finally, there is no disputing who runs the show.
“Azeez is the captain,” To’oto’o says. “He’s the leader of the ship. He’s the father of everybody who keeps everybody in line.”
For years, whenever he relived his upbringing to friends, Azeez Al-Shaair could detect ghostly Shit, I could never be YOU horror written across their faces. Into his first NFL training camp, in 2019, something changed. He bonded with rookie Dre Greenlaw and the more he heard this linebacker’s stories about growing up in foster care, the more Azeez started to look at him this way. (“I realized, ‘Dang, my life was fucked up and I made it this far. But his was fucked up, too!’”) All valuable perspective.
It’s hard to imagine a more disposable player on the 49ers’ 90-man roster than a small-school, undersized linebacker off a torn ACL pedaling a bike to practice.
No way would he splurge those NFL checks on a new car. He was used to riding a bike.
No way would he waste one precious 11-on-11 practice rep. He still lived as if tomorrow’s meal was not promised.
The practice week of San Francisco’s first exhibition game, Al-Shaair couldn’t stop tackling his own teammates. He didn’t know any other way. Finally, Kyle Shanahan lost his mind. During a team meeting — in front of everyone — the 49ers head coach went off. “You keep doing this shit, Azeez, and you’re going to get your ass cut!” The threat felt real. One more tackle of a teammate and he could fly 3,000 miles east to Florida. DeMeco Ryans was his linebackers coach then. “I told you!” Ryans said privately. “You’ve got to calm your ass down.”
His head coach was pissed. His position coach was pissed. Al-Shaair fumed. The rest of the week, he admits he was an “asshole.” He refused to thud up players on defense, putting his arms up as if to sarcastically plead, I don’t want to get in trouble! That moment? Al-Shaair could’ve diluted his game for good, gotten cut, vanished from the NFL completely. His employers thought he was just trying to be a tough guy. They didn’t get him.
Another opponent arrived in Santa Clara that weekend and, with one collision, his life changed forever.
On third and 10 with 3:10 left in the third quarter vs. the Dallas Cowboys — precisely when it’s time for even the bravest preseason consumers to go to bed — Al-Shaair sniffed out a screen pass to running back Mike Weber and… triggered. He drilled the Ohio State back for a five-yard loss, the stadium erupted. Vets half-asleep on the sideline erupted. Al-Shaair jolted to his feet and sprinted down the boundary, pointing at his coaches all the way.
“Pointing,” Al-Shaair specifies, “at Kyle and DeMeco. I’m like, ‘I told you motherfuckers!’”
When the 49ers reviewed film as a team the next day, Shanahan showed every play but this one. Skipped right past it. Al-Shaair started to seethe again. (“These motherfuckers,” he told himself. “They still don’t respect me. He doesn’t respect me.”) Right when it appeared the head coach was going to shut off the projector, he had one final message. “I have said a lot of shit about this guy,” Shanahan said. “But man, you’re a fucking baller!” Then, he played the clip. Coaches loved it. Players loved it. After roster cutdown day a few weeks later, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh told the UDFA Al-Shaair that this play secured his spot on this team.
Al-Shaair spent the next four seasons in San Francisco, one in Tennessee and inked a three-year, $34 million deal with Houston in 2024 to run Ryans’ defense in Houston.
Everyone now feeds off this 6-foot-2, 228-pound linebacker. Ahead of Houston’s Week 18 win, there’s Al-Shaair head-butting, smacking hands, losing his voice in pregame.
To’oto’o traces this deep connection to players spending a week and a half of training camp together at The Greenbrier in West Virginia. Distractions were eliminated. There’s nothing to do but hang out in each other’s rooms and engage in deep conversations beyond football.
All while the speed and violence required to operate within this Texans defense is made clear to new faces.
“We have a standard,” To’oto’o says, “and if you don’t play that way? You don’t belong here. When we watch film, there’s a way it’s supposed to look. And if it doesn’t look like that? It’s simple. You’re not supposed to be out there.”
Ryans draws this line. Those who don’t belong are removed from the roster. Yet, Ryans also has a “brotherly love” side that players appreciate, To’oto’o adds. We see Ryans threading this needle in all postgame speeches. From ’23 to ’24 to ’25, Houston keeps inching closer to bringing the coach’s vision to life. Speed doesn’t think Caserio would ever draft or sign a player who shies from contact and the second you walk through the door. The edict is simple: “Be you.”
You’re encouraged to hit, and talk, and hit some more with unbridled emotion. Lassiter isn’t the one who starts the trash-talk in the secondary. But he assures he finishes it.
“We embody the old school, smashmouth football mindset,” Lassiter adds.
All bloody good fun… until it isn’t. Until that police officer hiding behind the bushes pulls you over. Play this hard, this fast for 60+ snaps a game — attacking all with the ball — and a player is bound to cross a line.
On Dec. 1, 2024, everything these Houston Texans were trying to build could’ve come to a screeching halt. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence scrambled left, decided to slide and Al-Shaair failed to pull up at the last second. Instead, he drove his forearm through the Jacksonville quarterback’s head.
In fairness, this is a penalty. A melee broke out. He was flagged, fined, absorbed all ritualistic social-media scorn. But then something strange happened. NFL VP of Football Operations Jon Runyan wrote a letter that was disseminated to the media.
A public scolding that did not sit well with Al-Shaair.
He fell into a very dark place.
A black hole darker, he assures, than anything we can possibly imagine.
First, came the three-game suspension.
Next, came the letter.
In this letter, Jon Runyan stated that Al-Shaair had ample time to avoid such contact, was responsible for escalating the brawl that ensued, and then came the words that infuriated him most: “Your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football and all those who play, coach, and enjoy watching it, is troubling and does not reflect the core values of the NFL. ... Your continued disregard for NFL playing rules puts the health and safety of both you and your opponents in jeopardy and will not be tolerated.”
Media power players slammed that RT button. He was the No. 1 story in sports for all of the wrong reasons.
This branding as the NFL’s villain hurt most. Al-Shaair had never met Runyan, commissioner Roger Goodell, any of the league’s power brokers before in his life.
“He wrote the letter,” Al-Shaair says, “as if I personally slapped him in the face. I don’t even know you. You don’t know me. But you’re talking about me as if you know my character. You’re speaking in a very personal manner for somebody you’ve never personally met.
“That is insane. I’ve never had so much to say about anybody that I’ve never met before.”
Al-Shaair told Runyan they needed to chat face to face.
The VP played in the NFL himself from 1996 to 2009. His son is a guard for the New York Giants. In person, Al-Shaair asked Runyan if he’d use the same language if his son was involved in a similar collision and said they both had a responsibility to uphold the shield. “When you wrote that letter,” he told Runyan, “you didn’t care about what it was going to do to me or my character or anything I built up to this point.” Runyan countered that Al-Shaair knew exactly what he was doing, knew he was trying to take a shot at the QB. Al-Shaair pushed back and said he was not. “That’s not the character I have as a human being,” he told him.
Al-Shaair doesn’t dispute the flag. But to him, these are split-second decisions. To him, some of the most prestigious defensive players in the history of the game have been flagged for unnecessary roughness and facemask penalties, and the plays aren’t treated as DEFCON 1. Playing on the edge and, yes, crossing that line doesn’t mean he outright disrespects the sport. And if anyone understands that, shouldn’t it be Runyan? Ahead of their meeting, Al-Shaair learned about the VP’s own feral play style. In 2006, players voted Runyan the second-dirtiest player in the NFL, behind Rodney Harrison and ahead of Warren Sapp, Kyle Turley and Sean Taylor. This ex-Eagle went airborne to spear opponents in the chest.
“So, it’s even more irony that you’re this person writing up this stuff so offended by one play that I made,” Al-Shaair says. “And now apparently I’m this ‘dirty player’ when you literally are the epitome of that. That’s why I sat with him.”
Vitriol elevated to extremes typically reserved for players arrested for crimes.
Publicly, Al-Shaair leaned into it. Went heel. His post stating “IF YOU WANT ME TO BE YOUR VILLAIN, I’LL BE YOUR VILLAIN!” (with a picture of The Joker) generated 7.7 million views. Masses piled on. He tried to lean into his Muslim faith, specifically the virtues of “intent” because he knew his intentions aren’t to injure players.
He gives an example. If Al-Shaair were to give you $100 but he’s recording the video for social media, obviously the intent is self-gratification. A public pat on the back. The sum could’ve been a million bucks and meant nothing in the eyes of God.
“But if I gave somebody the last dollar I had with the intent to truly help this person,” he continues, “that’s worth a value in gold. I’m trying to play as hard as I can and I have to just be true to that regardless of what’s said about me.”
The meeting didn’t bring any peace. His season descended into chaos.
“I dealt with anxiety and doubts and fears and everything,” Al-Shaair says. “I dealt with so much mentally, more than physically. And I was dealing with a lot physically.”
Into the Texans’ divisional playoff game in Kansas City, Al-Shaair’s injured knee throbbed. He couldn’t practice. He couldn’t even participate in walkthroughs. To relieve pressure before kickoff, the linebacker had it drained 200 cubic centimeters — an excessive amount. Once the game began, Al-Shaair then hurt his other knee during a screen play. He visited the medical tent twice. “It was terrible,” he adds. “I literally felt it every time I took a step. The sharpest pain.”
All game, he screamed in agony. He cursed. His football soul left his body.
Al-Shaair never wants the Texans to tell him when he’s going to be mic’d up because it’d feel too weird. So when he found out after this KC game that he was wired for sound, a shiver went up his spine. This footage never saw the light of day, obviously, but he knows a handful of Texans staffers heard “all the fucked-up things” he was saying to himself those three hours.
“I’m pleading: ‘Why me?!’” Al-Shaair recalls. “I was in such a shitty place. And to know other people were hearing my darkest, deepest thoughts? On top of having the shittiest game in your career?”
The previous month, he tried to put on a good face for teammates. It was a lie.
After this 23-14 loss in Kansas City, all emotions poured out of Al-Shaair.
Inside the visitor’s locker room, he sobbed uncontrollably.
“I’m sitting there thinking I let the whole team down,” Al-Shaair says. “If I played how the team expected me to play, there’s no doubt we win that game. But there were plays where I personally knew I couldn’t make with what I was dealing with. And instead of pulling myself out, I tried to push through it.”
Right into the 2025 season, Runyan’s words lingered in his head.
He was terrified of becoming Public Enemy No. 1 again.
In Houston’s 26-0 win over Tennessee on Sept. 28 — rushing rookie Cam Ward — Al-Shaair put his hands up to block a pass and dinged the Titans quarterback in the head/neck area. The play was not flagged. Al-Shaair was fined $17,389 and another rush of anxiety returned. Here, Al-Shaair vows he was only trying to swat the ball. There was no ill will. Either way, the clip went viral because it looks bad in slow motion. He was again labeled dirty and it took until Houston’s bye two weeks later to get to a good place mentally.
Al-Shaair took time for introspection. He thought hard about specific plays.
Against Seattle, he hit quarterback Sam Darnold inbounds, slammed him out of bounds, received a flag… but no fine. NFL Code for admitting officials screwed up. (“I got to the point where I’m like, ‘OK, I don’t give a fuck.’”) Two weeks later, Broncos cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine concussed Texans QB C.J. Stroud mid-slide in a play similar to the Lawrence hit. Officials picked up the flag and did not fine Abrams-Draine. This time, they gave the defenders grace in ruling this as a bang-bang play. (“This kid does literally the same thing damn near verbatim. Craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m like, ‘Bro, are you fucking kidding me?’”)
So, why change at all?
He’s not looking back. He’ll play fast and worry about the consequences later.
A hold in the first quarter miraculously isn’t a hold in the fourth. A personal foul on this slide isn’t a foul on that slide. The NFL is destined to be inconsistent, so F it. These Texans aren’t going to obsess over how to act crew to crew, play to play. They’ll churn at one hellbent speed. Most importantly, Al-Shaair — and all players here — have the license from their employer to churn at one speed.
The correct voices are in their ears. This is the Texans Difference.
You’re chosen because you’re willing to play on the edge.
You are not asked to shape-shift into a gentle herbivore.
When 99.9 percent of the football world was trying cancel Al-Shaair, the Texans never flinched. The GM, Caserio, called the wording of Runyan’s letter “bullshit” and said Al-Shaair “represents everything we want this program to be about.” The head coach, Ryans, noted that too many quarterbacks try to slide late to gain an extra yard, which puts too much of an onus on defenders to figure out what the quarterback’s even thinking. “You don’t know if a guy’s staying up and continuing to run,” he said. “We hope Trevor’s OK. But also, if we’re sliding, you have to get down.”
The team’s DC, Burke, says coaches educate everyone on the rules and differentiate legal hits vs. illegal ones. But the last thing they ever want to do is stunt instincts and see anyone turn into a video-game glitch the second they’ve arrived at the quarterback. (Think: Mathias Kiwanuka infamously giving up on a fourth-and-10 sack of Vince Young.)
These Texans refused to lose focus.
The plan never changed: implant fear in opponents’ minds. Attack.
Truth is, if any coach inside this building tried to convince any player to slow down in light of a flag or fine, it’d be disingenuous.
“The fastest thing people see around here is fakes,” Burke says. “I tell everyone, ‘Be yourself. Be your own personality. Be who you are.’ I’m going to be me. I cuss a lot. I’m sorry. That’s just me. But if I wasn’t me, y’all would fucking sniff it out in two seconds. So everyone be themselves and we’ll just keep working to be better.”
Anyone in any industry can relate. When your name is dragged through the muck — when you’re painted as something you are not — it’s easy to succumb, to go on a national apology tour and believe what the world’s saying is true. Al-Shaair will be your villain, your Joker. But in his head? Al-Shaair knows he’s that 12-year-old running through flames to save his brothers and his niece. A kid who rose from homelessness and poverty for this NFL opportunity.
His intent is not sinister. Rather, his logic is simple.
Linemen and receivers and backs and QBs are all trying to make plays on him.
“You’re trying to embarrass me,” he says. “I’m trying to embarrass you.”
When Houston started this season 0-3, and then 3-5, coaches did not see players waver at all. DeMeco Ryans masterfully commanded the room. “One of the best I’ve been around,” Burke adds. Lassiter agrees that Ryans “brings the juice.” But no magical pep talk was required. Nor was there any reason to panic. The Texans had the ball with a chance to win late in these games. On defense, there was no need to spend all night in the lab. Lassiter knew this team was special early as OTAs in May.
“He’s bringing in guys who don’t need that,” Lassiter says, “who are already wired to be ready to go at any time.”
Finally, the dam broke.
No defense has brutalized Josh Allen quite like the Texans did in their 23-19 win. At 6 foot 5, 240 pounds, the Bills’ unicorn of a reigning MVP is the most difficult quarterback in the league to get on the ground. There was no place to hide vs. this SWARM. Allen skittered left… right… forward… backward… and was sacked eight times. In all, he was hit (legally!) 12 times. A number that deeply unsettled Sean McDermott afterward. Two weeks later, the Texans all but eliminated Patrick Mahomes from playoff contention. Safety Jalen Pitre toppled wideout Rashee Rice with a monster hit, flexed toward the Chiefs sideline and — at that exact moment? — Texans safety Calen Bullock believes a message was sent to the entire NFL.
For Al-Shaair, the symmetry was sweet.
A year ago, this was a personal house of horrors. This night? His interception sealed a win. He dropped to his knees to thank God. The antagonist cast as Voldemort, Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader rolled up into one has since been nominated this team’s representative for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award and also received the Good Guy Award by Texans’ PWFA chapter.
I ask Al-Shaair if he’s seeing himself in others on this roster. He thinks about the question for a moment and looks around the locker room.
His willingness to play through an excruciating amount of pain in 2024 wasn’t smart, but it did establish a precedent. This season, he’s seeing the same fight inside of everyone. Nodding toward Lassiter’s locker, Al-Shaair points out that the team’s old-school cornerback has barely been practicing due to that nagging foot injury.
The game arrives and he’s locked in. He doesn’t think twice.
“You’re willing to do that,” Al-Shaair says, “for this group.”
Two minutes to go. Down three. Season on the line. All momentum and all rules are on the quarterback’s side. In today’s NFL, the quarterback is the greatest source of fear. Mahomes, 13 seconds to go, zips a pair of completions to force OT in one playoff game. Mahomes, on one good leg, seizes the gap to pick up 25 yards with 2:55 to go in the Super Bowl. Defenders subconsciously brace for catastrophe against the elites.
But, again, look back to the Boom. Richard Sherman and co. refused to elevate Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers onto virtual pedestals. I spent a full week around those Seattle Seahawks for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ahead of both their Week 1 and NFC title wins over the Green Bay Packers in 2014. Rap blared. Players danced. All swagger from all corners of the room was unapologetic.
They didn’t bitch about the sport going soft. They simply kicked your ass and flipped the psychological script: this Seahawks defense got inside of the quarterback’s head. One game, Sherman famously yelled “U Mad Bro?” into Brady’s ear before proclaiming afterward that the Patriots quarterback was just one man. Another, Rodgers outright refused to throw a pass toward Sherman’s half of the field all 60 minutes.
After posting the greatest statistical season in NFL history, in 2013, Peyton Manning produced all of one garbage-time TD in a 43-8 Super Bowl drubbing vs. Seattle.
Step One to becoming an all-time defense? Refusing to participate in the coronation of quarterback deities.
Lassiter, a man who grew up idolizing this Seahawks D, sounds like Sherman’s long-lost nephew.
Wrecking Mahomes and Allen this past regular season is a perfect place to start.
“They’re phenomenal players,” Lassiter says. “But at the same time? It’s just the game of football. Football boils down to a bunch of 1 on 1’s. If I take care of my 1 on 1? The guys around me, I know they’re going to take care of their 1 on 1’s. I like our chances all the time.”
Sherman ran the 36th-fastest time amongst DBs in his draft. Lassiter was also near the bottom. Stopwatches take on the significance of a piss-filled bucket inside the blue tent when the Texans’ 22-year-old corner lines up for this “psychological warfare.” One on one, he knows each week’s combatant will try something new. His goal is to stay one chess move ahead and seek utter domination.
“Who wants it more?” Lassiter says. “You have to dive in mentally. Understanding tendencies. Understanding OCs. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses and seeing how people would attack you or how you would attack yourself.”
All of which feeds into Burke’s goal to make Sunday the “player’s day.”
Here’s what that looks like.
From the right slot, the ball is snapped and Lassiter reads Mahomes’ eyes. He’s able to stick with Hollywood Brown’s 4.2 speed stride-for-stride because he knows the Chiefs burner is going to take his route to the corner. Lassiter flips his hips, intercepts Mahomes and — on his way to the sideline — takes a moment to stare into the NBC camera lens with an index finger to his lips.
He calls this his flow state. Everything slows down.
“I knew he was coming back out,” Lassiter says. “I’m looking at the quarterback the entire time. If he’s going to launch it, I’m ready to run. And if he underthrows it, then I’m ready to gauge down. And I flipped, found the ball and it’s like backyard football. Back to when we’d play Jackpot.”
Ah, yes. Jackpot brings Lassiter back to childhood again. He started playing this childhood classic at age 4, too. Known up north as “500,” a kid chucks the ball into the sky and calls out a point total. Of course, in Savannah, it’d get physical. Fights broke out often. Two-hand touch was never an option and Lassiter assures he was the one doling out the pain. Never the other way around.
Step Two in becoming an all-time defense: Win in the playoffs. Nobody remembers dominant defenses that are one and done. Coaches and players are supremely confident they’ll be able lock down any offense in the AFC. The unknown is their own offense. In funding this hellish defense, Houston didn’t have the resources to pay up for new offensive linemen last spring. Like, say, Chicago. It shows. At 3.9 yards per carry, the rushing attack finished 29th. There’s room to blame both coordinator and quarterback, too.
The good news is C.J. Stroud can hit the big play. Teammates are keeping the faith. If he’s able to get these Texans out to a 14-0 lead — as he did vs. the Chargers in Week 17 — this defense should do the rest.
Expectations are high, but expectations were always high.
Once again, a player says a few words that’d warrant a trip to the principal’s office in other buildings.
“Super Bowl,” Speed says. “We have a lot of obstacles to cross to get there. But we’re capable. Especially behind C.J.”
Step Three: Find a nickname. This is how you’re remembered forever. S.W.A.R.M. is… fine. Probably a smidge too forced, too tame. The word “savages” comes up often. Bullock isn’t sure if that’s punchy enough. “Yeah, we’re savages,” he says. “But we know that already.” Honestly, it’s up to all of you. As ex-Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor once explained, Seattle DBs saw a bunch of submissions on Twitter. None were catchy. But the second they saw “Legion of Boom,” they were sold. A legion, to them, sounded like a vast army.
“It ain’t even about what they say,” Speed adds. “It’s about what we do.”
A sharp moniker will surface organically when Will Anderson Jr. inevitably chases down another quarterback, Speed supplies another “POP!” audible over the broadcast, Lassiter struts toward a camera after another pick and a hoarse Azeez Al-Shaair sets the fiery tone in the middle of all mayhem. It’s fitting. This year’s Super Bowl will be played exactly where his career began 2,374 days prior: Levi’s Stadium.
Like that exhibition game long ago, Al-Shaair will read the offense’s movements, sniff out a screen and slam the gas pedal.
He’ll wreck whatever’s in his path.
He’ll point to the sideline. And if he hoists a Lombardi Trophy, he’ll undoubtedly think back to when all he held in his hands were a pair of Nike slides outside of a burning house.
Damn, it feels good to have a home.
“This,” he says, “is everything my whole life’s been about.”
