Source: Texans plan to cut Andre Johnson if he refuses pay cut

If that's true, then I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's no reason to take that approach.

 

Did the Texans use the old "be mean to the girlfriend so she'll break up with you and you don't have to do the dirty work" routine?

Hey Andre you're not starting anymore.
What the f&$k? I'm out of here.
Whew.

He's clearly productive and we currently have no replacement. Seems odd that they wouldn't renegotiate first.

 

AJ's been here a long time, obviously, and earned a lot of love and respect. But he did not handle this well, either. He whined last year and undermined the new regime right from the start. And then proceeded to have a year that, on the surface at least, looked all the world like he just wasn't into it. Fumbles, drops - it wasn't a paticularly good year. And we have no idea what was going on in the locker room - was he poisoning it with negativity, apathy...?

Who knows what the real story is but it looks, from a 1,000 yards away, like the Texans are taking the bullet and letting Andre not only look like the victim but giving him an ample opportunity to chart his own path. They could have handled this a lot worse, from his perspective.

 

You have no idea if that's true.

What we do know is true is that there is no way the Texans could keep Andre at his current salary.

I'm not buying all this nonsense about roles at all, even if the Texans said it, they're full of crap.

Money move.

 

His b****ing and whining got old real fast, and now he's b****ing about individual stats. Hey 'Dre, guess what Texans fans have suffered through **** QBs and **** teams longer than you have. Count us old Houston Oilers fans and we've down right been tortured for years!!! btw..., we spent money during our torturous suffering, we didn't get paid monetarily or in results.

In fact, most of us were born as insufferable Houston sports fans, day one on this earth!!! Thanks to based Hakeem and the Rockets, they kept many of us out of the insane asylum with a nice respite.

 

Really surprised at a lot of the "overreactions" here for something that was largely expected and a formality if he didn't agree to take less.

Also LOL at people saying "Typical Texans crappy move..." when in reality, the crappy "typical Texans" move would be to keep an aging WR with an $18 million dollar cap figure on the roster for sentimental reasons (akin to extending an injured Cushing and an injured Schaub).

It certainly sucks... but its part of the game. The Texans are too young of a franchise to have had to made a lot of these decisions, but it happens to every team.

 

I've been anticipating this for at least 2 years now. I've made peace with it long ago. I think the franchise treated him well and I think he's been a professional 100% of the way.

There is no villain. This is what the NFL has become. Nobody retires at home anymore.

He's a Hall of Fame caliber player that needs more production to make it. I think he'll surprise us all and cement Hall of Fame status over the next 2-3 years. He still has it. WR's that take care of their bodies and don't rely on speed alone can play for a long time.

I don't think it was about money. Or winning. It was about one or the other. Pay him or let him take less money somewhere else to win. 1 or the other... not too much to ask IMO.

I hope he ends up with the right team.

I'm not sure Hopkins is the answer at WR1 (he very well may be) but I hope we do not draft a WR1 or WR2 early. We have other needs. WR and ILB are the easiest positions to address in free agency.

 

You sound like a bitter boyfriend who's girl just ran off with another guy.

Last offseason was definitely awkward and a little ugly in terms of the negotiation aspect but that's just part of the business, AJ himself was very quiet. But can you actually point to him continually "b****ing" and "whining"?

Look, I get how and why people can take an anti-AJ stand, but just because you can take that stand doesn't make it right, nor does it make it very intelligent.

 

Well said. I hate to see this day but any reasonable person knew it was coming and that's just how it was going to play out unfortunately.

 

Good luck to Dre. he's been a great player and person here and hopefully he wins a SB.

 

This is my impression as well. The Texans are taking the PR hit here and trying to make this parting seem like a football operations move instead of a salary cap move.

Asking AJ to take a "reduced role" and him not agreeing plays much better than "Texans ask Johnson to take pay cut; Johnson refuses; demands trade".

 

This was the right thing to do for the franchise, even though it seems sort of cold-blooded from the outside.

I love Andre as much as any other Texan fan, but let's try to keep this in perspective. Andre is still a multi-millionaire. He's going to be fine. Let's not act like we should all feel sorry for him when he already has enough money to buy and sell everyone on this bbs.

 

It's not cold-blooded, though. Cold-blooded would have been trading him to a prepetually bad franchise opening week with no warning (which is what the Patriots did to Harrison, Seymour, the OL who's name I can't remember... was it Mankins?).

This is doing right by AJ: it's not him forcing the Texans' hand; it's the Texans forcing his (allowing him to not look bad - remember the vitriol spewed at him this time last year? This has a significantly different tenor); he gets to control his next chapter by seeking a trade and, if that fails, he gets to hit the open market before anyone has had a chance to spend a dime in free agency.

I'm not sure, from Andre's perspective, this could have gone any better, frankly.

 

The more I think about this the more I believe this is the Texans taking the hit so Andre can leave and not get heat and we will welcome him back as an ambassador for the team and hopefully be our first HOFer.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Andre Johnson averaged 62.4 yds per game last year, his lowest since 2005. His cap hit for 2015 is $16.1M, 2nd among WRs to Calvin Johnson.</p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/572709637172137985">March 3, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Agreed (that's why I said "seems"), but someone needs to tell Joe Texan Fan this...

I only wish we would have done this at this time last year. We could have avoided the ugly pre-training camp episode all together and probably got more for him via trade.

Very few franchise greats end their career with the franchise they made their name with. Biggio is the exception, not the rule. No one remembers Rice as a Raider, Hakeem as a Raptor, Montana as a Chief (except Oiler fans...), etc.

Andre will always be a Texan.

 

They should have traded him last year if their intentions wasn't to keep him... Could have at least got a extra draft pick or two. Holding onto him accomplished nothing.

Now that the Texans have the cap space... Let's see what they do with it and if the team improves this coming season.

 

I honestly don't feel so bad or heartbroken about this. Ever since the 2-14 season he just seemed to not want to be here, telling media he's here because he's under contract, seeking a trade etc.

Fans trying to make the Texans the bad guy in this aren't looking at the situation with perspective.

Andre doesn't want to play here in Houston, and that's fine. Texans can use that money to keep and sign other players.

 

^^^ Everyone needs to read this.

This is what I would have preferred too. The Texans were a little short-sighted in holding onto him for another year. I guess sentiment got the better of McNair (plus they didn't want to seem like they would give into player demands).

 

Maybe their intention was to keep him - but then he groused/complained in the locker room and looked either done or disinterested too often last year.

There are potentially a lot of layers to this but the bottom line is that this is probably the ultimately right move for both parties.