Texans Overpay for Al-Shaair and Prove They Still Don't Understand What Wins in the NFL

Here we go again. The Houston Texans have decided to throw $54 million over three years at linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, and I am here to tell you exactly what everyone is too afraid to say out loud: this is a mistake that perfectly encapsulates why this franchise continues to live in the shadow of competence rather than basking in genuine excellence.

Let me be crystal clear about something before I get into the specifics of this deal. Al-Shaair is a solid football player. He shows up, he makes tackles, he understands what he is supposed to be doing on any given play. He is a professional, and he has earned the right to be paid as a professional. That part is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether paying him $18 million per year on average, which is what this deal works out to, represents sound football decision making. It does not. It represents panic masquerading as prudence.

The Texans front office looked at a linebacker who was entering the final year of his contract and decided that rather than testing the open market or using the franchise tag if necessary, they would simply hand over a massive extension. They did this because in today's NFL, apparently we have all agreed that the worst thing a team can do is lose a player to free agency. Never mind that losing players to free agency is how the salary cap is supposed to work. Never mind that the best way to build sustainable success is to understand exactly which positions and which players warrant premium compensation and which ones do not. The Texans have decided that the way to success is to just keep paying people.

This is the same franchise that two years ago signed Laremy Tunsil to a massive extension. This is the same franchise that continues to make questionable decisions at the quarterback position despite having what was supposed to be a generational talent in terms of draft position. This is a franchise that seems perpetually confused about what actually matters in professional football. Al-Shaair's extension proves my point better than any argument I could construct from scratch.

Now let me explain why this deal is bad from a pure football perspective. The linebacker position in 2024 is not what it was in 1994. This is not a revolutionary thought. Everyone knows it. Running backs are receiving massive extensions despite being increasingly irrelevant to offensive success. Linebackers, however, have gone in the opposite direction. The modern NFL is won and lost in the air. It is won and lost by quarterback play and receiver talent and offensive line strength. It is won and lost by edge rushers and secondary talent. The middle linebacker, no matter how productive he appears to be on the stat sheet with his tackle totals, is simply not a position where you sink serious money anymore.

Al-Shaair had 151 tackles last season. That is a lot of tackles. It is also somewhat meaningless when evaluating the true value he brings to a football team. Tackles are a deceiving stat. A linebacker with 151 tackles might be in poor position and chasing ball carriers all day long because his defense is fundamentally flawed. A linebacker with 80 tackles might be sideline to sideline, diagnosing plays perfectly, and making the defense work exactly as designed. We do not know which one Al-Shaair is without really studying his film, which the talking heads on television do not do. They see 151 tackles and they nod their heads and they say he is productive. The Texans apparently did the same thing.

Here is what concerns me most about this deal: it signals that the Houston Texans organization does not have a clear understanding of their own priorities. If they did, they would recognize that their issues are not at linebacker. The Texans have the number three overall pick coming up. They have the chance to address genuine needs. They have a quarterback who was supposed to be transformational and has been anything but in his first season. They have an offense that lacks creativity and punch. They have secondary concerns that keep them up at night. And yet here they are, locking in cash to a middle linebacker at $18 million per year at a time when that position is at its lowest value point in modern football.

The market for linebackers is not what it used to be. Elite pass rushers are paid generously. Elite corners command premium money. Tackle eligible tight ends who can also catch passes sometimes get massive deals. But traditional linebackers? The market for those guys should be contracting. If Al-Shaair had hit free agency, he might have gotten paid reasonably well, but he probably would not have commanded this kind of annual value. The Texans essentially paid him a preemptive free agent bounty just to avoid the negotiation process. That is not strategy. That is surrender.

What makes this even more frustrating is the timing of it all. The Texans are not in a position where they can afford to get careless with their money. They are not the Kansas City Chiefs, with a quarterback on a sweetheart deal who allows them to be frivolous elsewhere. They need to be precise. They need to identify the positions that will move the needle and concentrate their resources there. A linebacker extension does not move the needle. It just locks you into paying above market rate for a position that has never been less important to winning football games.

I keep coming back to the same thought: why did the Texans do this now? What was the urgency? Al-Shaair was not going to get paid significantly more on the open market than what this deal represents over time. The Texans could have let him play out his contract year, evaluated his true value to their defense, and made a decision at that point. Instead, they panicked. They did what franchises do when they are afraid of making hard decisions: they paid to make the problem go away.

The grade here is unmistakable and unambiguous. This is not a close call. This is not a situation where reasonable people can disagree about the merits of the decision. The Texans made a poor decision that prioritizes the illusion of stability over actual football sense.

VERDICT: F. The Houston Texans overpaid for a position they did not need to prioritize and demonstrated once again that they do not know how to build a winning organization. If they want to change course and prove me wrong, they need to start making decisions based on actual football value rather than the fear of losing players to free agency. Until then, expect more mediocrity masquerading as progress.