Rajeeyah Howard doesn't get nervous…typically. There's an inner confidence within this vibrant, high-spirited woman that one way or another things will work out as intended.
This August morning down in Georgia felt different, though.
Nearly 1,000 miles away, Howard's son, Nazir Stackhouse, was waiting to hear whether he'd made the Packers' roster as an undrafted free agent.
And mom couldn't be there.
Howard, the woman responsible for signing this 6-foot-4, 327-pound defensive tackle up for football, was reduced to periodically checking her phone for updates while managing a busy workday at Family Dollar.
It was an unfamiliar, helpless feeling for Howard, who moved heaven and earth for the past decade to attend nearly every football game her son played, from little league to the SEC.
"I was unloading the truck with my Green Bay shirt on, just sad I couldn't be there," Howard said. "It was the biggest moment we've been waiting for and here I am unloading this truck, pulling my back out."
Howard introduced Stackhouse to the game to build his self-esteem while also keeping her son on a successful path. A love for the sport of football soon sprouted for mother and son.
A transformative five years at the University of Georgia saw Stackhouse grow as both a man and a football player. Howard was there for the high of winning back-to-back national titles with the Bulldogs and the low of going undrafted this past April.
The big man with a big personality earned an opportunity in Green Bay, though. While Stackhouse promised to let mom know if he'd made the team, Howard kept checking.
Noon. One o'clock. Two. Even when news reports started trickling out that her son made the team, Howard waited for that call. Once practice was over, Stackhouse quietly went to a focus room inside of Lambeau Field to deliver the news.
He'd made it.
"I just wanted to embrace the moment because there's a lot of hard work put into getting that answer," Stackhouse said. "I was just very, very thankful for it."
Football is just a small part of Stackhouse's story. It's a testament to willpower, grace and sacrifice. It's a young kid who overcame personal adversity and a silent battle with narcolepsy to establish himself as a prospect in a football hotbed.
It's a hard-working mom pulling overnights, punching out at 2 a.m. and driving hundreds of miles through the dead of night on not a wink of sleep to watch her son play that afternoon.
When Howard found out her son made the team, you better believe there was hollering in the store.
"You'd thought I was a Green Bay Packer player," Howard said. "You'd thought I was the one who got put on the roster."
Early signs
Before Stackhouse even played football, there were signs it might be his sport. How else do you explain a 5-year-old running around with a broken wrist like nothing's wrong?
But that was the reality with which Howard was presented after her son came home one day reporting pain in his wrist.
Stackhouse was playing on a track ride at the playground before baseball practice when one of his brothers bumped into him, causing Stackhouse to tumble to the ground with one hand behind his back and the other breaking his fall.
He laughed it off, at first. Stackhouse still practiced while favoring his wrist during fielding drills. Once home, Stackhouse told his mom what happened and that he may have sprained it.
Tests proved otherwise.
"Ain't no way in God's green earth you could be moving around and doing what you're doing like it's not broken at all. That's when I knew he was a football player." -Rajeeyah Howard, Nazir Stackhouse's mom
After putting ice on it, it took no more than 10 minutes and "that thing swelled up like a doggone balloon." Howard drove her son to the hospital. This was no sprain or even a hairline fracture. X-rays showed Stackhouse broke his wrist, straight across.
"Snapped it in half," said Stackhouse with a laugh. "It was cooked."
Stackhouse was given a harness and instructed to wait a couple weeks for the swelling to go down before surgery. During that time, the elastic bandage on the youngster's wrist was the only indication of anything being out of the ordinary.
"The way this man hurt himself, ain't no way in God's green earth you could be moving around and doing what you're doing like it's not broken at all," Howard said. "That's when I knew he was a football player."
Seeing her son's size and natural ability, Howard went down to Wal-Mart with her brother and bought every piece of football equipment they had in stock to put that suspicion to the test, going so far as to even set up a little football field in the yard.
But Stackhouse had to want to play and that was the decision he faced after moving from New Jersey to Georgia when he was 7.
One day, while Stackhouse was on the playground at Wade Walker Park, Howard noticed kids playing football across the street. She asked her son if he wanted to join in. Stackhouse said sure and Howard walked straight up to the coach to inquire.
"As soon as he saw me, the coach was like, 'Oh yeah, he can practice right now,'" Stackhouse said. "I was like, 'Right now?' I was enjoying my time at the park. I'm not ready to practice, but I ended up practicing the next day."
Turning into a football player
Football didn't immediately take for Stackhouse, who learned on the first day how grueling the game could be.
When asked to run a lap around the park before practice, Stackhouse didn't think he'd make it. Once tackling started, he appealed to his mom about why the kids were hitting so hard.
"The first time Nazir got on that football field, honey, you talk about crocodile tears. I'm talking about tears the size of Mount Rushmore," Howard said. "That man cried every day just about. But after the first season, after the first go-around with him trying football, Nazir was a beast."
Within a year, Stackhouse was the one lowering the boom and the ball carriers were begging him to let up. He developed a strong support system that included youth coaches Valister Wilson and Corey Newsom, whose son Nico was a teammate and friend of Stackhouse.
"Naz was like a big wrecking ball. ... His name would always get brought up because he was one of the biggest kids on the field.” -Packers CB Micah Robinson, Stackhouse's Future Stars Game teammate
Newsom coached Stackhouse on the defensive line in park league and was the first to see something in the child – not only the youngster's size and ability but also his on-field demeanor.
Howard remembers going to pick up Stackhouse from practice one day when Newsom pulled her to the side and directed her attention to watching her son on the field.
"I want you to look at your son," Newsom told her. "When Nazir gets on the field, he turns into a different person. In his stance, for some odd reason, it just seems like he blocks everything out."
He was right. To this day, Stackhouse is never more focused than when standing on a football field. The laughing and giggles subside between those white lines.
Playing for the Central DeKaub Jaguars, a determined Stackhouse started to get noticed in the Atlanta area. He received invites to local camps and a spot on Team Georgia in the Future Stars Game.
He was joined by current Los Angeles Chargers running back Kimani Vidal and future Packers teammate Micah Robinson, who played alongside future Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards on the Atlanta Vikings.
"We all had the same goal in mind, wanting to go to the NFL, wanting to go to the league," said Robinson. "Naz was like a big wrecking ball. Before games, we were doing scouting reports for little league and his name would always get brought up because he was one of the biggest kids on the field."
By high school, Stackhouse met two more influential figures in his life in Stephenson (Ga.) High defensive line coach Gary Kimpson and recruiting coordinator Corey Johnson, who would drive Stackhouse to school from his mom's place in Decatur.
Their trips often consisted of morning side quests, which included Stackhouse assisting Johnson in stocking the school vending machines.
"He'd pick me up really early and we'd go to Sam's Club and buy all the stuff," Stackhouse said. "We'd stock the vending machines before school started and I took pride doing that. I didn't mind it, and he was giving me money for it."
Football and the relationships the sport cultivate helped Stackhouse avoid distractions, which was Howard's goal when she first signed her son up for the sport, and she followed Stackhouse where the game brought him.
"When I’m on the field, I’m locked in. I’m very expressive off the field. I talk to people. I can laugh, smile. But when I’m on the field, I am a different person." -Nazir Stackhouse
Stackhouse returned to Decatur his junior year and played at Columbia High School, where he not only blossomed into a four-star defensive line recruit but also an imposing fullback.
All of 300 pounds at that point, Stackhouse scored three times during his senior year. No finesse, no wiggle – just stiff-rams and bowling through whomever was in his way.
That mentality started at Wade Walker Park with Newsom and has extended all the way to the NFL.
"When I'm on the field, I'm locked in," Stackhouse said. "I'm very expressive off the field. I talk to people. I can laugh, smile. But when I'm on the field, I am a different person.
"My will to win in games is so strong to where I will try to do almost anything to help my team win. Coach Corey (Newsom) was the one to bring it out of me."
A silent battle
Stackhouse wasn't lazy, but he sure was tired. Like always tired.
At first, Howard didn't think much of it. Her son worked so hard in school and sports. For that reason, Stackhouse needed his rest or so she thought.
It could be amusing at times. During Super Bowl XLV between Pittsburgh and Howard's adopted team, the Packers, Stackhouse dozed off on the couch during the second half until mom's jubilation shocked him out of his sleep.
It could be a problem in school, though. Stackhouse had difficulty staying awake in class. Any time his mind wandered, or he got too comfortable, the response to monotony was sleep.
"Every day his freshman year when we had a meeting, he fell asleep. It was like either the room would get quiet or when we see Nah sleeping, just clap." -Warren Brinson, Stackhouse's former Georgia roommate
Stackhouse became known as "Sleepy" or "Big Sleepy" to friends and teammates. The fun-loving and gregarious Stackhouse went along with it, but Howard was concerned.
She brought her son to see a doctor. Answers still proved elusive, and the finances weren't there to dig further beneath the surface.
"The sad part about it is Nazir has been dealing with that all his life," Howard said. "Every doctor we went to, they could never find a diagnosis. People used to put on him, 'Oh, he's being lazy or he's this or he's that,' but that's not the case."
Remarkably, Stackhouse fought the disorder all the way until his freshman year at Georgia. He used little crutches and mental exercises to try keeping his attention, but sleep prevailed in meetings.
Worse yet, it happened on the sideline during Stackhouse's first college game against Arkansas in 2020, an intimate affair in front of 16,500 in Fayetteville due to COVID-19 restrictions at the time.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, while praising Stackhouse's work ethic and humbleness before the NFL Draft, told the New York Times earlier this year he'd never seen a player fall asleep on the sideline before until he coached Stackhouse.
It became a real source of anxiety. With Georgia in the national limelight, Stackhouse worried about TV cameras catching him taking a catnap on the bench when the offense was on the field.
"People think I'm joking when I say this, but this is 100% true – every day his freshman year when we had a meeting, he fell asleep," said Packers defensive lineman Warren Brinson, who was Stackhouse's college roommate freshman year.
"It was like either the room would get quiet or when we see Nah sleeping, just clap. At Georgia, once you fall asleep a couple times, they make you do a sleep test."
Stackhouse was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a chronic neurological disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and involuntary sleep episodes. He also had sleep apnea, a disorder where breathing stops and starts during sleep.
There's no cure for narcolepsy, but both Stackhouse and Howard were relieved. He still faced some trial-and-error to find the right prescription medication, but his condition finally had a name and he began using a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine while he slept.
His Georgia teammates helped him feel at ease with the diagnosis. In Green Bay, neither Brinson nor Head Coach Matt LaFleur have seen Stackhouse fall asleep once in team meetings.
"Had we not known that going into it, I don't think you'd know it because I've never seen any indication of that in his time here," LaFleur said. "He's done a great job to mitigate the effects of that because that's obviously a real thing –a real challenge. But it's a credit to him and our medical staff to help him and put him in the best position possible because it hasn't been an issue.""
Finding a way
Howard didn't miss games whether it was Stackhouse's or any of her kids'. If that meant driving through the dead of night, so be it. Anything to be there in time for kickoff.
There were a few close calls. Howard remembers one time clocking out at 2 a.m. from her job at Kroger, getting the family in the car and driving to Florida on no sleep whatsoever.
"My mom, I still don't know how she do it, man," Stackhouse said. "It worried me to try to figure out how my mom was gonna get to my games. But she still found a way, every time."
Howard always enjoyed road trips, whether she was watching Stackhouse in the Future Stars games or the SEC. The introduction of NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) in 2021 was a major help, too.
Whatever extra cash Stackhouse saved up, he'd buy a plane ticket to get his mom to wherever the Bulldogs were playing if the road trip was just a bit too long.
Sometimes she'd travel with friends and family. Sometimes she's come alone, but Howard was always there…even on the occasions she may have been "looking crazy" and half asleep.
"I went straight to his games," Howard said. "If they had practice in the morning, I had to get there right after work, not even go to sleep. I'd be at the game looking crazy. That's because I'm half-sleeping. But I'm there."
Howard watched Georgia win back-to-back national titles during Stackhouse's redshirt freshman and sophomore seasons and was there on the day social media was introduced to her son.
On Nov. 4, 2023, the undefeated Bulldogs met Missouri in a battle of top 10 ranked teams. Georgia was clinging to a 27-21 lead with eight minutes left when Howard began heading to the restroom as the Bulldogs defended at midfield.
"My mom, I still don’t know how she do it, man. It worried me to try to figure out how my mom was gonna get to my games. But she still found a way, every time.” -Stackhouse on Howard
Stackhouse, physically exhausted and frustrated with how the game was going, was in the middle of his rush of Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook on first-and-10 when he noticed the tight end disengage from his block.
Stackhouse dropped back at the same moment Georgia linebacker C.J. Allen crashed into Cook, redirecting his pass into Stackhouse's chest. Interception.
"My jaw just dropped," said Brinson, who was watching from the sidelines. "I was like 'Bro, what the (expletive)?' D-linemen don't catch the football, especially Naz. When he caught that interception, it's like 'This is crazy.'"
Howard stopped in her tracks at the sight of her son's pick and began running stride for stride in the stands until he was tackled at the 5-yard line after a 45-yard sprint.
Bullard, from deep in the secondary, could only see both teams running to Mizzou's end zone. He finally looked up at the jumbotron and realized it was Stackhouse who picked it off.
"(Shoot), we were hoping he could score," Bullard said. "It's always fun when the big man get a pick, man, because you already know they're trying to get jiggy with the rock. To close out a game like that, he made a huge play for us."
Stackhouse rose to a thunderous ovation from the Georgia faithful. The Bulldogs converted the takeaway into a field goal and Bullard picked Cook off again on the next series to seal a gritty 29-21 win that moved Georgia to 9-0 on the year.
It was the most memorable moment of a five-year run in Athens that saw Stackhouse record 96 tackles (nine for a loss) with three sacks over 59 collegiate games.
"It was the best moment of my life," Stackhouse said. "And I will get another one."
Saving the best for last
Stackhouse's final year at Georgia and the lead-up to the 2025 NFL Draft should've made for one of the happiest times in his 23 years, but a series of adversity and tragedy followed.
Coach Kimpson and Coach Johnson both died in 2024. Then, just weeks after talking with Coach Newsom, Stackhouse received a call from his mom earlier this year to inform him that his influential youth coach had passed away.
All these men who looked out for Stackhouse and many other aspiring football players in the Atlanta area were gone.
"That was my dawg, man," said Stackhouse of Newsom. "He was there with me when it all started, right at the beginning. The crazy thing was he hit me up weeks before the draft and asked me how everything was going. I told him I wanted him to come to a game this season."
Like always, Stackhouse turned to football and his goal of breaking into the NFL. Reports suggested Stackhouse's narcolepsy was not a concern for teams and he was projected as a Day 3 draft pick.
Nobody was more excited than Howard on the final night of the draft, but that anticipation quickly turned into anxiety as the hours passed and the draft drew to a close in Green Bay.
Two hundred and fifty-seven names were announced. None were Nazir Stackhouse.
"When it was all over, I was sitting there in disbelief for a minute," Howard said. "I was just so confused."
The waning moments of the draft and the minutes after it ends are the NFL's version of a doorbuster, with teams calling players and agents to line up their undrafted rookie class.
"The draft thing doesn’t even matter at this point in my mind because I believe God and the universe put him exactly where he needed to be and that’s Green Bay." -Howard on Stackhouse
The Packers were the first to reach out to Stackhouse. He spoke with LaFleur, who told the rookie defensive lineman, "We'd love for you to come out here and show us what you've got."
Say less.
"Coming to Green Bay was also an eye-opener for me because I need to get out of my comfort zone," said Stackhouse, who also had an offer from the hometown Atlanta Falcons. "This is a great opportunity to do it, especially in a city like this."
By trading Gs, Stackhouse was reunited in Green Bay with a slew of former Bulldogs, including Bullard, Devonte Wyatt and Quay Walker. If that wasn't enough, the Packers drafted Brinson and Robinson in the sixth and seventh round, respectively.
"I was like, 'Damn, they getting all the Georgia boys, for real,'" said Robinson with a laugh. "I was shocked; 32 teams in the league and ain't no telling what teams we were going to, but for us, to all end up on the same team, I think that's pretty cool."
In Howard's mind, it felt like destiny for her son to go to Green Bay. She'd faithfully followed the Packers since the Super Bowl XLV victory.
Now, her first green-and-gold jersey would be her son's.
"The draft thing doesn't even matter at this point in my mind because I believe God and the universe put him exactly where he needed to be and that's Green Bay," Howard said.
"It was not all that great, but the end was perfect. Because what did they do? They saved the best for last, baby. The best for last."
Something bigger to accomplish
It's a running joke that Stackhouse is the worst at surprise parties. Maybe that's just Naz or a coping mechanism, but he just doesn't know what to do when good things happen.
The 6-foot-4, 327-pound defensive lineman made a solid case to become the latest undrafted rookie to make the Packers' roster out of training camp, recording four tackles and a pass defensed in three preseason games.
While Howard bit her nails down in Georgia, Stackhouse quietly sat and ate in the team cafeteria while awaiting his fate on cutdown day. Even after LaFleur informed him he'd made the team, Stackhouse was sort of numb to it all.
"If you know where Naz comes from…a lot of people where he grew up probably wouldn’t be as joyful and jovial as he is. I respect him for that. He doesn’t let much bug him, man." -Brinson on Howard
"I never know how to feel," he said. "I was talking to my mom and she was telling me that I have to learn how to be proud of myself and celebrate when I get the chance, be blessed.
"But all I know is I gotta keep it up, the grind, do what I've been doing, keep getting better and find different ways I can help the team in any way possible."
Brinson was relieved when he discovered Stackhouse made the team. Admittedly, it would've been hard for either former Bulldog to celebrate without the other on the roster.
Making the moment that much sweeter was the simple understanding the road Stackhouse traveled to get there.
"If you know where Naz comes from…a lot of people where he grew up probably wouldn't be as joyful and jovial as he is," Brinson said. "I respect him for that. He doesn't let much bug him, man. He's a positive mindset guy."
Stackhouse gets the positivity from mom, who proudly and animatedly donned a Cheesehead at Family Night. She also was in attendance for her son's first NFL regular-season game against the Detroit Lions last month.
"When he made that roster, a tear just dropped down because – for those who didn’t see it, he made you see it." -Howard on Stackhouse
Due to her work schedule, Howard will have to watch most games from Georgia this year and she's OK with that. Her baby is all grown up and making his own way in the world now.
"To be honest with you, I never had a doubt that Nazir was gonna make that roster," Howard said. "When he made that roster, a tear just dropped down because – for those who didn't see it, he made you see it. That's beautiful; so, so beautiful."
Stackhouse has five tackles this season while rotating behind Wyatt, Karl Brooks and Colby Wooden.
When Stackhouse was little, he and his mom would write out small prayers to say before his football games. They continued the tradition all the way to college.
Sitting in his Packers locker in pregame, Stackhouse tears up a little while reading the words. He's learned he won't always have his mom and there will be times when he walks alone.
Until that day comes, Stackhouse won't stop thanking Howard or the coaches who've helped him. This is more than football to Nazir Stackhouse – it's a tribute.
"That's my self-motivation," Stackhouse said. "I know there is something bigger than me that I'm trying to go out there and accomplish."
