Azeez Al-Shaair made sure his message landed before kickoff. On Sunday, the Houston Texans’ linebacker stepped onto the field at NRG Stadium with “stop the genocide” written across his eye black. But it’s not like he wasn’t aware of the repercussions. Having gone through the process once after the wild-card round already, to Al-Shaair, it was not about money, but spreading his message on a bigger platform. And by the looks of it, he doesn’t regret it one bit.

“I understand it’s a fine,” he said. “The things that are going on make people uncomfortable, (so) imagine how those people feel. I have no affiliation or connection to these people other than the fact that I’m a human being. If you have a heart and you’re a human being, then you can see what’s going on in the world.

“When I’m walking off this field, that’s the type of stuff that I’m thinking about that I have to check myself when I’m sitting here crying about football when there’s people dying every single day.”

Meanwhile, cameras caught Al-Shaair earlier in the day firing up his teammates. Before the loss to the Patriots, he delivered a pregame pep talk while still wearing the eye black. However, once the ball kicked off against Patriots Nation, the message disappeared. He followed the rules during play, but the statement had already been made, at the cost of violating Section 4, Article 8 of the NFL rulebook.

“Throughout the period on game day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warmups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field), players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office,” the rulebook states.

But we’re pretty sure the linebacker already knows that, since he was at the receiving end of it just days ago.

Reportedly, Al-Shaair first wore the eye black during Houston’s wild-card win against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and was fined $11,593.

This situation is not new territory for the league. The NFL has fined players before for putting messages on uniforms, even when the intent was personal and emotional. Back in 2015, Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams was fined $5,787 for writing “Find the Cure” to honor breast cancer awareness after losing his mother. Though the catch is Williams had already been wearing the same eye black for the five years before he was fined.

As for Al-Shaair, his message has more to do with global issues than personal.

Why was the message important to Azeez Al-Shaair?

This was never a random statement from Azeez Al-Shaair. The Texans linebacker regularly brings children to NRG Stadium, many of them amputees affected by violence in the Middle East.

So, the message itself came from a place of deep concern. Al-Shaair’s stance connects to what is happening in Gaza. However, Al-Shaair did not frame this as politics. Instead, he framed it as a human issue that he could not ignore.

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Interestingly, CAIR-Houston praised Al-Shaair for speaking up, even drawing a powerful comparison. The group said the league “should have no problem with an NFL player opposing genocide, whether the genocide is in Gaza or Sudan or elsewhere.”

Moreover, this was not new behavior from Al-Shaair. He has backed this cause before, most notably during the NFL’s My Cause My Cleats campaign. At that time, he wore cleats supporting the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

“If my platform can bring even a little hope to families in Palestine, then that is what I want to use it for,” he said in a statement earlier this season.

So even if the message makes people uncomfortable, Al-Shaair knows football is not the biggest thing happening in the world. And he is willing to live with that reality.