Shannon Sharpe has a bone to pick with Tom Brady after the former NFL quarterback rushed to the defense of Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair.

Last weekend, Al-Shaair sent shockwaves across the league with his illegal hit on Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence during Houston’s 23-20 win over Jacksonville. With just over four minutes remaining in the first half, the 27-year-old drove the signal-caller into the turf after he’d already begun to give himself up on a slide – sparking a fierce brawl between players from both teams.

On Tuesday, the NFL issued Al-Shaair a three-game suspension for the hit, and upheld the punishment following an attempted appeal several days later.

In the immediate aftermath of the divisive play, many fans and pundits alike slammed Al-Shaair for injuring Lawrence, who the Jaguars placed on injured reserve with a concussion. Yet in a surprise turn of events, Brady insisted that the defender was not entirely to blame – insisting that signal-callers must do a better job of protecting themselves.

The bold take didn’t sit well with Sharpe, who called out Brady for being hypocritical on the ‘Nightcap’ show. “Tom Brady is the wrong messenger because they had a rule changed,” he began.

“Does he not know ‘The Brady Rule’ was instituted to protect him? I get it; I get what he’s saying, Ocho, but he’s the wrong messenger. Because a lot of these rules that they put in place to protect the quarterback, he benefitted from.

Shannon Sharpe argued that the NFL created a rule in order to protect quarterbacks like Tom Brady

Shannon Sharpe argued that the NFL created a rule in order to protect quarterbacks like Tom Brady ( 

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Getty Images)

“It’s kind of like what we see with a lot of Hispanics when they talk about ‘Yeah, deport, deport, deport.’ When they got over here, we see it. We know how they got over here. See, it’s easy to say ex post facto. ‘Well, I’m here now. I don’t give a damn. Close it – don’t let nobody else over.’ Tom Brady said, ‘Well, hell, I ain’t got to take no more hits; punish the quarterback.’ Really, bro? Really? Really?”

While appearing on ‘The Herd’ podcast earlier this week, Brady argued that it wasn’t Al-Shaair’s responsibility to protect Lawrence on his late slide – adding that quarterbacks should be well aware of the risks they’re taking when they take off downfield.

“The only aspect that I think is very challenging, and certainly for Trevor Lawrence, nobody wants to see anybody get hurt but it is also the reality of a very physical sport that we play,” he said. “Defensive players have to be aggressive. That’s their nature. I was trying to be aggressive on offense, we tried to block aggressively, and at the same time the defense tries to tackle aggressively.

“I don’t know, there’s an aspect to 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 skillset to have. A lot of times I wish I had that skillset.

“At the same time, when you run you put yourself in a lot of danger. And 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 the defense.”