Nazir Stackhouse is a curious case not just for Green Bay Packers but also for the entire NFL community not just because of his success to make a roster after not getting selected in the 2025 draft.
Many football are interested how he will navigate the professional league because of his well-documented narcolepsy – a chronic neurological disorder that involuntarily a patient to sleep.
Stackhouse, a defensive tackle standout from Georgia, was not able to land with a team last April, but was picked up by the Packers a week after and was signed to a contract not too long after.
One can say that some teams probably are sleeping on him.
The 23-year-old made headlines before in the most unusual way when it was revealed that he suffers from narcolepsy. He was spotted in his fifth year dozing off while they were playing against Ole Miss Rebels which happened to be an important game for them.
Those who did not know his conditions were instantly on his case calling him uninterested or unprofessional.
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“Just having narcolepsy all the way up to now, it’s a challenge,” he said in an interview with Sports Illustrated.
“Your friends think you’re lazy. Friends, they call you Sleepy. Everyone calls me Sleepy. At Georgia, that was my nickname, Big Sleepy. But I embraced it. It was a joke from the beginning but it’s a part of me. It’s something I can’t run away from, so I just have to learn how to live with it.”
Nazir Stackhouse is taking adderall for it
Adderall is a banned substance in the NFL. There were even players who were suspended after such drug was traced inside their body.
However, since Stackhouse is a special case, he got an exemption from the league. He called it “a type of adderall” that one gets only through an approval from the league.
When it is not taking effect, he resort to other unconventional ways to stay awake.
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“So, if taking notes is going to help me stay up, then I’m going to do that,” he said.
“I used to get rubberbands and put them on my wrist and pop them when I felt like I was dozing off. … It is definitely hard. I do find myself paying attention, at the split-second and blink of an eye, I’ll be knocked out just like that.”
He learned to live with and he is even using it now as his celebration on the field.
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