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Houston Texans: Andre Johnson’s comments on target about Bob McNair

By Brian K. Patterson

HOUSTON, TX - FEBRUARY 02: NFL player Andre Johnson at the taping of Nickelodeon's Superstar Slime Showdown at Super Bowl in Houston, Texas, premiering Sunday, Feb. 5, at 12pm (ET/PT). (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Nickelodeon )
HOUSTON, TX - FEBRUARY 02: NFL player Andre Johnson at the taping of Nickelodeon's Superstar Slime Showdown at Super Bowl in Houston, Texas, premiering Sunday, Feb. 5, at 12pm (ET/PT). (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Nickelodeon ) /
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The great Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson was able to weigh in recently on a variety of topics, including his thoughts on Bob McNair’s controversial, yet insensitive comments that were made about the protests going on the NFL. Let’s talk about it for a bit.

Houston Texans fans — our heralded, yet retired wide receiver in Andre Johnson had a terrific opportunity to speak his mind on a expanding platform.  Was it the Player’s Tribune?  The Houston Chronicle?  Nope, it was on Arian Foster‘s podcast titled “Now What?” that has had some interesting guests such as Duane Brown right when was in the middle of the firestorm between he and Bob McNair.

Foster was the most dynamic running back this organization has ever had but he’s terrific with giving strong opinions on various topics.  His pod is certainly the platform for him to do that.  He recently had an opportunity to bring on Johnson as a guest and what you had was an hour of pure gold conversation between the two.  It honestly felt as if I was listening in on their conversation that could’ve been easily held over the phone.

That’s how things felt to me.  Just in case you haven’t heard it yet, you can take a listen of it here:

Getting the soft-spoken Johnson to talk for an hour seems like an incredible feat but Foster was able to do so in his latest edition of the pod. They talked about everything from his life growing up in Miami without a father, to his take on the Courtland Finnegan incident that we all love to some of things that were absolutely wrong with the Houston Texans.

One of the important points he brought up was how troubled he felt about Houston Texans owner Bob McNair’s infamous “inmates running the prison” comments.  He said he was troubled by them but wasn’t surprised he heard them considering his checkered past running off the mouth.

Johnson once again alluded to an incident when McNair addressed the players in the locker room, shortly after Barack Obama historically won his first presidential election and expressed his disdain of such a notion.  Although McNair has denied the event ever happened, many players such as Brown and long-time center Chris Myers confirmed that this event actually happened.

McNair has too walked his statement back indicating he was talking about the rogue owners rather than the players but Johnson wasn’t fooled by the recent backtrack of comments. He felt that if it wasn’t for the players, he wouldn’t have a product to make money off of as we won’t go and watch folks play off the street.  That’s true because with the way 2017 went down with all the injuries, that’s what it felt like as attendance for games plummeted.

As you know, Johnson is the first inductee into the Texans Ring of Honor but because of McNair’s

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terse words, he was actually considering not attending his own ceremony.  He likely recanted on that thought because it ultimately was for the greater good, celebrating those accomplishments he had an opportunity to make while we all watched in awe during those golden years.

In addition, after the 2012 season, he requested a trade because he knew that this team was going to fall apart and that there were guys on the team that weren’t worthy of roster spots.  He also was concerned that he hasn’t had much help through his career as Kevin Walter has been his primary No. 2 receiver through most of his career.  No disrespect to Walter — well maybe so — but he’s no Will Fuller.

Former general manager Rick Smith told Dre that they were going to “keep what they had and build through the draft.”

Smith tried to appease Andre with the drafting of DeAndre Hopkins to affirm that statement but one could say it was too little, too late as Johnson’s effectiveness in games seemed to decline as he aged going into his 10th season with the team.

Plus the rest of the 2013 Draft was just plain awful outside of Hop with D.J. Swearinger, Brennan Williams, Sam Montgomery, Trevardo Williams, Alan Bonner and Chris Jones.

I do have to admit that Ryan Griffin has contributed at a considerable level and that’s why he’s still here while David Quessenberry has made an amazing bounce-back from cancer.  I hope that he continues to prove those wrong by being a valuable asset on the line.  Quessenberry’s story has yet been written and could shed some better light on that draft.

Next: Derek Newton's cut from the team a semi-dirty move

All in all, Johnson was right on so many levels with his comments and it was just good to hear from in long stretches of diatribes.  I’d like to hear more of that.

But until then, us fans will have to enjoy this in small bunches. I’m down for that.

Go Texans.

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