Florida Atlantic linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair felt sick as he watched Pittsburgh Steelers star Ryan Shazier leave the field on a stretcher earlier this month.

Facing the Cincinnati Bengals on Dec. 4, Shazier — a 2011 graduate of Plantation High School — sustained a neck injury that required emergency spinal stabilization surgery and has been ruled out for the season with his career now in doubt.

A longtime fan of Shazier’s, Al-Shaair is aware that he could have been in a similar situation had an attempted tackle gone differently.

"There’s a few times this year where I might have ducked my head when I shouldn’t have," admitted Al-Shaair, the Owls’ (10-3, 9-0 in Conference USA) leading tackler this season with 133 tackles. "We talk about it when we have our meetings (with coaches) … you see something like that, it’s a wake-up call."

Currently finishing his junior year, Al-Shaair’s high school years in Tampa came as the public was learning more about concussions and CTE and their potential long-term affect on football players. Houston Texans quarterback Tom Savage and Buffalo Bills quarterback Nathan Peterman each left their respective games on Sunday with concussions; replays also showed Savage’s body shaking — as if he was suffering a brief seizure — on the field. He later re-entered the Texans’ 26-16 loss to San Francisco, a decision that some say shows the NFL’s concussion prototcol does not work.

While FAU coaches do discuss safe tackling with their players, Al-Shaair acknowledged there are times where he’ll act in the heat of the moment during a play. Al-Shaair missed the Owls’ last loss, a 34-31 defeat at Buffalo on Sept. 23, with an elbow injury.

"You don’t think about (fear of injury), you just go in and try to make a tackle," Al-Shaair said. "You’re athletes trying to make a play."

Defensive end Ernest Bagner described Shazier’s injury as "tragic."

"It’s not really scary, it seems more like a fluke accident than something that’s regular," Bagner said. "You get taught to not lead with our head down, but it is what it is."

Bagner, who played two years on the junior-college level at Riverside City College (Calif.), said coaches at both levels do roughly the same amount of teaching about head safety and proper tackling. "You wanna be safe at all levels," Bagner said.

Even as coaches and officials stress safety, players at all levels have tried to avoid changing their form if it means opposing players breaking free from tackles. FAU defensive end Tim Bonner has become a favorite among his teammates for what he calls the "Doom Boom", a technique on kickoff coverage where the redshirt sophomore sprints down the field and tries to level anyone in his playing path.

Despite the risk that could come with such a technique, Bonner — who missed time in fall camp with a concussion — says he’ll continue to levy the big hits.

"I ain’t gonna go head-first or neck-first," said Bonner, who recorded his first sack with the Owls in the C-USA Championship win over North Texas on Dec. 2. "I just throw my body at them. It’s scary but when the game time comes, I don’t think about it."

FAU will play Akron on Tuesday in the Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl at FAU Stadium.