Houston Texans linebacker Azeez al-Shaair (0) has \u201cStop the Genocide\u201d written on his eye black during an NFL wild card playoff football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (Aaron M. Sprecher via AP)<\/p>\n
Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair<\/a> claimed there were threats to pull him from last week\u2019s playoff game for having \u201cstop the genocide\u201d written on his eye black.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Al-Shaair wore the message \u2014 a reference to the suffering endured by the people in Gaza \u2014 during the Texans\u2019 30-6 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wildcard round of the NFL playoffs. Hours before the team\u2019s divisional round game against the New England Patriots, the league announced it had fined Al-Shaair. The nature of the message was not the reason for the fine, but the mere existence of it violated the NFL\u2019s policy against including a personal message on one\u2019s person. He was fined more than $11,000 for the message.<\/p>\n Last season, San Francisco 49ers star Nick Bosa was fined<\/a> for crashing a TV interview while wearing a MAGA hat.<\/p>\n Following the Texans\u2019 loss to the Patriots, Al-Shaair was asked about the league\u2019s decision to fine him. He explained that he fully expected the fine, as Patriots reciver Stefon Diggs \u2014 who played for the Texans last season \u2014 was regularly fined for writing messages on his eye black. What he didn\u2019t expect, however, was the threat to take him out of the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that that was a fine,\u201d Al-Shaair said at his locker. \u201cI understood what I was doing. For example, [Diggs], he wears the eye tape \u2014 since I\u2019ve know him \u2014 with stuff on it, and they always fined you. But I was told that if I wore that in the game, I would be pulled out the game. So, I think that was probably the part that I was confused about, because obviously that was a fine, but I ain\u2019t never seen [Diggs] get pulled out the game for having eye tape with writing on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Al-Shaair then doubled down on the message, adding that \u201cit\u2019s bigger than me\u201d and focusing his attention Gaza.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The linebacker has been vocal in his opposition to Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza. During the NFL\u2019s \u201cMy Cause My Cleats\u201d<\/a> campaign, Al-Shaair wore cleats recognizing the Palestine Children\u2019s Relief Fund. Emblazoned on the side of one of the cleats was the word \u201cFREE\u201d in the colors of the Palestinian flag.<\/p>\n The post Houston Texans Player Claimed He Was Told He\u2019d Be Yanked from Game for \u2018Stop the Genocide\u2019 Message on His Eye Tape<\/a> first appeared on Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Texans linebacker Azeez al-Shaair (0) has \u201cStop the Genocide\u201d written on his eye black during an NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[15930,7,221,253,2368,249,6,1515,57,252,531,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-703652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-azeez-al-shaair","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-new-england-patriots","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nick-bosa","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","18":"tag-stefon-diggs","19":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115955187578983156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}