Sports

NFL Referees Miss Clear Punch To The Head In Texans-Bears Game

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Getty Image / Alex Slitz


Emotions can run hot in an NFL game, especially when one team takes offense to a hard hit against their quarterback. That’s exactly what happened during the 3rd quarter of the Sunday Night Football game between the Houston Texans and Chicago Bears.

But, things boiled over a little more than usual after a hard hit on Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams along the Chicago sideline. So much so, in fact, that Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair threw a punch on the sideline that went unnoticed by the game’s referees.

Here’s a look at the hit, which was definitely legal.

That’s a good, clean hit even if the Chicago sideline understandably took exception to it. But,  what happened next is unacceptable. Take a look.

Somehow, the refs didn’t even see it! Azeez Al-Shaair was allowed to stay in the game and played a big role in the 2nd half. If caught, that’s an automatic ejection as well as a 15-yard penalty.

I could see the league office suspending Azeez Al-Shaair  for that punch, simply for the fact that he would’ve been ejected from Sunday night’s game had the referees spotted the punch.

Also, why can’t the league replay center look at an incident like that and hand out discipline. That’s something they do in the NBA during altercations. The fact that the NFL replay center can only look at it if the refs call a penalty on the field makes no sense.

The Texans played with a physical tone on defense all night, though. They sacked Caleb Williams 7 times and hit him 11 times en route to a 19-13 win to go to 2-0.

Unfortunately for Houston, Azeez Al-Shaair might not be there to help them go 3-0 next week on the road against 2-0 Minnesota.