In their game between the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars, Texans player Azeez Al-Shaair landed a violent his on Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence that sent Lawrence to the turf before being carted off of the field.  He is currently in the concussion protocol after his head made hard contact with the ground during the second quarter.  Lawrence was in the process of making a slide when Al-Shaair hit Lawrence in the facemask. 

The NFL allows quarterbacks to slide to stop a play in order to cut down on injuries.

Lawrence had just returned to the field after missing two weeks with a shoulder injury.

Whle Al-Shaair apologized to Lawrence on Monday morning via X; the NFL felt a stronger punishment was needed.  In his post Al-Shaair stated that he did not see Lawrence begin his slide until, “it was too late and that it happened “in the blink of an eye” before saying he was sorry for the hit.”  He continued, “to Trevor I genuinely apologize to you for what ended up happening.  Before the game we spoke and I told you how great it was to see you back out on the field and wished you well. I would never want to see any player hurt because of a hit I put on them, especially one that was ruled ‘late’ or ‘unnecessary.’”

Texans coach DeMeco Ryans spoke on the incident Monday morning saying, “unfortunate hit on the quarterback.  But it’s two-fold, a lot of the quarterbacks in this day and age, they try to take advantage of the rule where they slide late and they try to get an extra yard and now … a lot of onus is on the defender, right?

He continued “you don’t know what a guy is thinking.  You don’t know if a guy is staying up and he’s continuing to run. You don’t know, and then you get a late slide and you hit the guy. Unfortunate that Trevor got hurt. Hope Trevor is OK, but also if we’re sliding, we have to get down.”

While Lawrence was laying on the ground being attended to, teammates mobbed Al-Shaair.  Jaguars cornerback Jarrian Jones threw a punch at Al-Shaair and was ejected from the game.

While Al-Shaair was in the process of leaving the field, fans began screaming at him with Jaguars Brandn Scherff joining in.  Texans teammate Will Anderson was escorting Al-Shaair off the field when a fan threw a water bottle that his Anderson in the helmet.  The fan was also ejected.

Al-Shaair was ejected from the game and on Tuesday morning, the NFL issued a suspension to Al-Shaair for three games.

Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said later that such a play, “really has no business being in our league.”

The incident involving Trevor Lawrence was not Al-Shaair’s first infraction…

Last week he was fined “$11,255 for an out of bounds late hit on Tennessee Titans running back Tony Pollard.

Earlier this year, Al-Shaair was fined after he punched Chicago Bears’ Roschon Johnson in a sideline scuffle.