Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans believes that Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was partly at fault for the concussion he suffered on a hit from Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair over the weekend.
Ryans suggested that Lawrence’s decision to slide late and try to get an extra yard may have led to the hit, and that as a defender, Al-Shaair had to make a split-second decision to either hit the quarterback or not, regardless of whether Lawrence had slid or not.
“I think what can be done is just you have to look at all sides, and we don’t have to overreact just because I think a guy gets hurt,” Ryans said. “We’re not intentionally trying to hurt anyone. I think there is an overreaction when someone gets hurt, but we just have to look at it all from all perspectives.”
Ryans also suggested that too much of the onus is on the defender to somehow miss the sliding quarterback, and that defenders are put in a difficult position when a quarterback slides late.
“It’s twofold, right? I mean a lot of the quarterbacks in this day and age, they try to take advantage of the rule where they slide late, and they try to get an extra yard, and now you’re a defender, a lot of onus is on the defender, whether it’s on the sideline or whether it’s on the quarterback, you don’t know what a guy is thinking,” Ryans said.
Ryans also criticized the Jaguars’ bench for overreacting to the hit, saying that it led to a melee and that both teams need to be better on the sidelines.
