There's some Azeez Al-Shaair in all of us
Let's all take a lesson from one of last season's greatest personal turnarounds.
OK, nobody is insinuating that we should all sprint directly through the sternums of other human beings at maximum velocity. Although, let’s face it. We all know someone who refuses to deplane with row-by-row chivalry. Those heathens deserve a trip to the blue medical tent. Come to think of it, all community relations departments for all 32 NFL teams should collaborate with Delta, Southwest and JetBlue to unleash linebackers on the dregs of society trying to shave 1.7 seconds off their commute to Gate B5.
I get it. You see the name in the headline above — Azeez Al-Shaair — and immediately imagine the worst this sport has to offer.
The Houston Texans linebacker has been universally dubbed the dirtiest player in football. After his hit on Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence during the 2024 NFL season, the NFL’s own VP of Football Operation Jon Runyan made a public spectacle out of Al-Shaair, declaring to the sport’s millions upon millions of consumers that the Texan had zero respect for the sport itself.
“He wrote the letter,” Al-Shaair told us, “as if I personally slapped him in the face.”
That week, Al-Shaair was admonished by roughly 99.9 percent of the public.
It’s an extremely violent play. We’ll get to the logistics of it all.
But in that moment of uproar, what got completely lost in the discourse is everything that preceded that seven-second clip.
How Al-Shaair escaped a burning home at age 12, saving his two brothers and one niece. How his family of 11 became homeless and crammed into an extended-stay motel at $370/week. How he’d take the city bus 2 1/2 hours to school — it took so long because he needed to drop his little brothers off at elementary school on the way. How he wore the same clothes every day. How he tried not to eat his lunch because Al-Shaair knew the little ones back home needed food more than him.
How football became his release. He had no off switch. At Florida Atlantic, he’d fight with teammates on the field and study film at 3 a.m. off it.
How those two brothers saved from the flames moved in with him at college because cockroaches were scattering across the floor back home. He didn’t want them going down the wrong path.
How he led the Conference USA in tackles as a junior, tore his ACL as a senior and competed in linebacker drills at his pro day 140 days later.
How he defied all odds to crack the San Francisco 49ers’ 53-man roster… royally pissing off Kyle Shanahan that camp.
The player, no, the person was reduced to nothing but a repulsive villain in the wake of that Jaguars melee. And as Al-Shaair revealed to Go Long in a two-part series on the Texans defense, it all steered him down a very, very dark road.
