Andre Johnson: Does He Finally Have His Breakout Season?

Few NFL players are so good that they can shine no matter what the offensive system or the players around him. Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson is one of those players. You have to be great to go to the Pro Bowl twice with Mister Mittens David Carr throwing you the ball.

I've seen a few articles about Johnson's fantasy prospects like this worth-a-read one from FootballGuys.com. From someone who has followed Johnson's career closely, I will add my observations about his injury history and prospects in Gary Kubiak's offense.

Injury History: No NFL team is particularly forthcoming on injuries, but I put all the information found from public sources in this entry on Andre Johnson's offseason knee scope. In part:

In 2005, he missed three games due to an unspecified pain, variously described at the time as pain in the back of his left knee or in his calf near the knee. In 2007, he missed 7 games for receiving what was eventually described as a sprain to his left PCL and MCL.

The type of injury he had usually responds to rehabilitation without surgery, but as I understand it, it is not unusual to have to clean up small particles of floating cartilage that may have broken off related to the 2007 injury. That by scoping the knee, you get the best chances of the player coming back to full speed.

This should be something to closely watch going into the season. He said in June his knee is doing fine. After he came back from injury in 2007, he played the rest of the season without much practice and still with knee pain, hence the scope. The pain he was experiencing wasn't reported at the time, and that is why people were surprised about him getting his knee scoped in May.

Performance: At the end of the FootballGuys.com piece, one analyst was trying to make the statistical case that Johnson has always underperformed expectations. Last year, that was only due to take a hard shot on his knee in the second game of the season.

And in previous years, it was because much of the Andre Johnson goodness was wasted with Carr as his quarterback, and from 2005 and before, playing in some of the worst offensive schemes ever seen on any NFL football field and with a dreadful supporting cast that contained few true starters.

A while back, I attended a Texans luncheon where Gary Kubiak and Andre Johnson were speakers. Apparently, when Johnson first met Kubiak, he was asked if he would like to get 120 receptions in a season. And Johnson just smiled. In Kubiak's first season with the team, Johnson led the league with 103 receptions. He started the 2006 season on a 120 reception pace, but eventually defenses started putting exotic coverages on him because they knew about Carr's difficulties knowing the right place to throw the ball. If Johnson got shut down, the offense got shut down.

The Texans offense works better with Johnson, but both quarterback Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels demonstrated that they could work the ball to the open receivers. The only thing I believe that can stop Johnson this season is if his knee isn't right. If his knee is good, the Texans offense can be as good as any team in the league.