Andre Johnson opens up about Bob McNair's 'inmates' comments on Arian Foster's podcast

HOUSTON – Andre Johnson was the guest on former Texans running back Arian Foster's podcast, “Now what? with Arian Foster,” published on Tuesday and among other things, he said he considered not doing the ring of honor ceremony because of his feelings about the comments made by Texans owner, Bob McNair when it was reported he said “Can’t have the inmates running the prison,” at the owner's meetings.

The Texans honored the legendary receiver as the inaugural inductee into the Texans ring of honor on Nov. 19, approximately three weeks after those comments came to light.

Johnson told Foster, "I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t say it surprised me, I just didn’t like it. To know that you did so much for a franchise and then to have him come out and say something like that, at the end of the day, you don’t make the money if we don’t run it. You take some people off the street and put them in there, nobody is coming to watch that.

"It was really touchy with me, I even thought of not going to the ring ceremony.”

Foster, who played six seasons with Johnson in Houston said his feelings about McNair were the reason he did not attend the ceremony, even though dozens of their teammates did.

"That’s part of the reason why I didn’t go,” Foster said. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to respect you, you know how I feel about you. I planned on going, but the day of, (I thought) I can’t. I can’t look at this dude in the face, because I’m not going to shake his hand. I didn’t want to shake his hand and I wasn’t going to pretend I wanted to shake his hand. I always felt like that anyway (about McNair), but the confirmation from his comments and it keeps happening over and over."

Johnson also acknowledged that he vocalized his frustration with the team internally with the organization.

"A lot of people don’t know, I asked Kubiak for a trade,” Johnson said. “The year after we lost to New England in the playoffs (in 2013), that’s the year I asked for a trade. We had a lot of guys that were just taking up space. You had starters playing special teams, and it shouldn’t be like that. We had a lot of guys on the roster that really wasn’t doing anything."

Johnson said he and an unnamed teammate had talked about seeing the future of the team not being very bright.

"I had been asking for another receiver. It never happened. It was just things I felt (about asking to be traded),” Johnson said. "I was just like, 'Hey, let me get out of here.' Kubiak told me I was crazy.”

Johnson also said he went to speak with general manager Rick Smith about the team improving the roster, since he saw the team wasn’t making any moves in free agency.

"We going stick with what we got, and we gonna build through the draft," is what Johnson said Smith told him.

Both Foster and Johnson said they felt like 2011 was the year the Texans should have won the Super Bowl.

"If Mario (Williams) doesn’t get hurt and Matt (Schaub) doesn’t get hurt, it was hard to beat us that year," Foster said.

"I totally agree, I think if Schaub doesn’t get hurt, we win it,” Johnson said. “I tell anybody and everybody, that was the year we should’ve won the Super Bowl."