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Houston Texans captain Azeez Al-Shaair getting a three-game suspension has been a massive storyline coming out of the NFL's Week 13 slate following his hit on Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who was attempting to slide.
Legendary quarterback and current Fox broadcaster Tom Brady gave his take on the matter during an appearance on "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," during which he admitted having "mixed emotions" about the hit that led to a massive skirmish and Al-Shaair's immediate ejection.
Lawrence was ruled out the remainder of the game for a concussion after his head whipped onto the grass.
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"I’ll start by saying there’s mixed emotions I have about it as well," Brady said. "I remember in 2001, I think we played at Buffalo and I slid late. Nate Clements was the corner for the Bills, and he came up out of the secondary and absolutely crushed me. My helmet went flying off. I got back and ran into the huddle, and I had a lot of teammates that came up to me the next day and said, ‘Dude, these guys are coming. You got to get rid of that football. And if you’re gonna slide, you better get down. These guys are coming to get you.’
"It was a great kind of learning experience for me because I realized, when I’m out of that pocket, things are moving a lot faster for me. The defense is trying to be aggressive, and over time, the NFL has obviously done a lot of things to protect players — players’ health and safety and on, and on, and on."
One of the main rules is hits to the head and neck area, which the NFL has cracked down on in recent seasons. Also, hitting the quarterback while he slides is something defenses need to be wary of each week.
In the case of Al-Shaair, the NFL deemed him in the wrong for making his hit on Lawrence, saying in his suspension reasoning that he could've altered his hit in the moment.
Though Brady has been on the receiving end of such hits, he questioned if the way the NFL has evolved, in this case with quarterbacks running more often than ever in the history of the game, that the offense can't go without blame here.
"The only aspect that I think is very challenging, and certainly for Trevor Lawrence, nobody wants to see somebody get hurt," Brady said. "But it is also the reality of a very physical sport that we play. Defensive players have to be aggressive — that’s their nature. I try to be aggressive on offense, we try to block aggressively. And at the same time, the defense tries to tackle aggressively.
"There’s an aspect for me that I think the quarterbacks need to take better care of themselves. I see Josh Allen run it a lot, I see Lamar Jackson run it a lot, and it’s a great skill set to have. A lot of times, I wish I had that skill set. When you run, you put yourself in a lot of danger. When you do that, I don’t think the onus of protecting an offensive quarterback who’s running should be on a defensive player. I don’t think that’s really fair to a defense."
Brady said he doesn't like the label "dirty player," which has been used by fans against Al-Shaair, especially considering the league pointed to his past transgressions on the football field as reason for the three-game dock.
"I don’t like that one bit," Brady said about the dirty player label. "Maybe they fine or penalize a quarterback for sliding late. They say, ‘Look, if we don’t want these hits to take place, we’ve gotta penalize the offense and the defense rather than just penalize the defensive player for every single play for a hit that happens on a quarterback.’"
Brady knows that game speed in the NFL can be lightning quick with decision-making needing to be made fast in order to execute plays on both sides of the ball.
But sometimes those decisions don't match up well, resulting in what transpired in Duval County on Sunday afternoon where Al-Shaair's decision to go full speed into the sliding Lawrence will have him sidelined until Week 17.
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