FOXBOROUGH, MA – Azeez Al-Shaair walked off the wet Gillette Stadium field with a heavy heart. Partly because his season ended Sunday with the Houston Texans’ 28-16 loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC divisional round.
But also because of a message he’s been trying to send all season.
The fine – Al-Shaair violated section 4, article 8 of the NFL rulebook, which prohibits players from showing personal messages on game day – didn’t surprise Al-Shaair.
“I knew that that was a fine. I understood what I was doing,” he said after the game Jan. 18.
What confused Al-Shaair was that he was told before the matchup against the Patriots that if he wore the message during the game, he wouldn’t be able to participate.
“At the end of the day, it’s bigger than me. The things that are going through makes people uncomfortable, imagine how (Palestinians) feel?” he said. “That’s the biggest thing. I have no affiliation, no connection, to these people – other than the fact that I am a human being. If you have a heart and you’re a human being, and you see what’s going on in this world, you check yourself real quick.
“I’m sitting here crying about football when there’s people dying every single day.”
Al-Shaair is the Texans’ 2025 Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee.