Everyone knows about the beatdown Houston Texans receiver Andre Johnson gave Tennessee Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan back in his prime at NRG Stadium.
That’s not the only time the Hall of Fame pass-catcher nearly threw hands with Finnegan during his playing days.
Recently, Johnson was a guest on Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe and Pro Bowl receiver Chad Johnson’s Nightcap Summer Sessions podcast tour at a live show at Houston’s House of Blues on Sunday night.
There, the recent 2024 Hall of Fame inductee told a story about how the infamous fight nearly occurred first when Johnson pulled up to Club Play, a former popular nightclub on Miami’s South Beach.
“Bro, I’m pulling up in valet and they jump out the car while the car’s moving,” Johnson revealed. “I’m like, ‘What the hell y’all doing?‘ They were like, ‘There he goes.‘ So, I’m like, ‘What are y’all talking about?‘ It’s Cortland. He’s standing at the front door of the club. I didn’t even see him. They wanted to get on him right then. I’m like, ‘Nah, we’re not doing that.’”
Andre Johnson told The Nightcap Show that his brother and friend wanted to jump Courtland Finnegan at a night club (before Dre whooped him on the field) but he had to call them off
Fast forward to the game, Andre Johnson told Kubiak “I’m finna beat his ass”
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Johnson, who remains the Texans’ all-time leader in every receiving category after spending 12 of his 14 NFL seasons with the franchise, has been on record stating that he had problems with Finnegan since the seventh-round pick cracked Tennessee’s starting lineup in 2006.
Known as a quiet player in the locker room, Johnson’s stoic attitude didn’t mesh well with Finnegan’s trash-talking demeanor. The incident occurred in the offseason leading up to the 2010 campaign.
Several months later, Johnson’s patience wore thin as Houston took a 20-0 lead. By the fourth quarter, it had run out.
“I told (Texans head coach Gary Kubiak), I was like, ‘Hey man, I’m fixing to beat his ass,’” Johnson said. “That was just it. I just had enough of the stuff he was doing.”
Both players were ejected and fined $25,000. Johnson went on to produce in Houston for four more years as the franchise turned the corner.
Finnegan, who signed a five-year deal with the then-St.Louis Rams the following offseason, was never the same player after that fight. He bounced around the league with four different teams before finally retiring in 2016.
One could say that brawl on a November afternoon silenced more than just Finnegan’s mouth.