HOUSTON -- Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said he was in a "really dark place" and wondered if he'd play football again in the days after he was suspended for three games for his hit on Jacksonville's Trevor Lawrence that left the quarterback with a concussion.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday for the first time since the suspension, Al-Shaair discussed his state of mind during his absence.
"The things that you can think when somebody says they're in a dark place, as dark as you can go is where I was truthfully," he said.
Al-Shaair added that "it was hard for me to see myself playing football again" before he met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and league executives Troy Vincent and Jon Runyan.
Lawrence clenched both fists after the hit -- movements consistent with what's referred to as the "fencing response," which can be common after a traumatic brain injury. He was on the ground for several minutes as teammates came to his defense and mobbed Al-Shaair in what escalated into a brawl.
As Al-Shaair was leaving the field after being ejected, fans started screaming at him. Jaguars veteran guard Brandon Scherff joined in, prompting another altercation with Al-Shaair. Texans teammate Will Anderson grabbed Al-Shaair and was escorting him off the field when a fan threw a water bottle and hit Anderson in the helmet.
Al-Shaair said that he understood the suspension, but disagreed with how he was characterized by Runyan in the letter informing him of the punishment. It included Runyan telling Al-Shaair: "Your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football and all those who play, coach, and enjoy watching it, is troubling and does not reflect the core values of the NFL."
He said he needed to talk to Runyan and other NFL executives to understand how they viewed him as a player before he could return to the field.
"I really had a moment of, there's no way I can go out and play football again if this is how people that I work with view me," Al-Shaair said.
He said Runyan told him that he was watching the play and the ensuing melee when he wrote the letter and that he was referring only to those moments and not his entire career in his comments about his sportsmanship.
"But the way he typed it, he said got obviously taken out of context," Al-Shaair said. "I clearly made a mistake (and) the reason why he typed something, which ended up being taken out of context as a mistake, is because I did something that was obviously not right, me taking my helmet off and me starting another brawl ... wasn't right.
"But everything prior to that I stand on the fact that I never tried to hurt him," he continued.
Al-Shaair said he sat in a room and didn't do anything for about five days after his suspension.
"It's like a blur," he said. "I didn't eat nothing. I didn't go anywhere."
By Friday of that week, some children at a foster care organization in Tennessee whom he had met last year when he played for the Titans sent him messages of encouragement.
"I got so many different messages like that and I remember just sitting in my bed and I was like: 'Man, like I can just keep sitting here sad and sulking and just feeling like I'm being misjudged or I can just do what I always do, which is just try to be positive and spread positivity, do the best that I can,'" he said.
He booked a plane ticket to Nashville and got there in time to attend the same event at the foster care organization that he attended the previous year.
"I had so many people saying so many negative things and to see people that were happy to see me and were happy about my presence, I think that's what kind of like snapped me back," Al-Shaair said. "Like regardless of what's being said, you know who you are and just lean into that and ... from there just crawling myself out of this place."
When the AFC South champion Texans (9-7) face the Titans on Sunday, he'll return for the first time since the hit on Lawrence, and Texans coach DeMeco Ryans is thrilled to have him back. The Texans have been hit hard by injuries and are limping into the playoffs after two straight losses.
"We've missed him over these past three weeks, just missed his presence, his leadership, missed his playmaking ability on the field," Ryans said. "So, we're excited to get him back out there and let him knock some of the rust off."