The Texans practiced Friday at the Methodist Training Center and after, head coach Gary Kubiak and wide receiver Andre Johnson answered questions from the media. The following is a transcript of their respective interviews.
Head Coach Gary Kubiak
(on WR Andre Johnson) "Well, we made a decision this morning basically that he's not quite ready to go. He's had a really good week. We held him out of practice today and really I held him out so he could actually probably work a little harder on his own with the trainer. We made a lot of progress this week. He's real close, but not yet ready to go, so we got to have other guys continue to step up."
(on if it was tough to make the decision to keep WR Andre Johnson from playing on Sunday) "Yeah, it is because he's very, very close and he's working very hard. But as I said before, we watch him, we're listening to him, we got a long, long way to go and we're going to do the right thing so that when Andre's back, he's back 100 percent."
(on FB James Casey) "James is ready to go unless something happens between now and Sunday morning. All indications are he's fine. He's come a long way, but he's ready to go."
(on if FS Quintin Demps will be active on Sunday) "Yeah, Demps is active and he's in a backup role and could play in nickel and return kicks also."
WR Andre Johnson
(on how he's feeling today) "I feel the same way. I don't feel like I'm ready to play. I'm not a full speed yet and I said I won't put myself out there until I'm able to run full speed. That's pretty much it."
(on if there is anything else he can do that he hasn't done already) "No, you just have to keep maintaining the rehab and just try to keep pushing myself. It gets frustrating because every week a game goes by that you wish you can be out there, but it's just part of the process. I just keep working hard at what I'm doing and hopefully next week I can be out on the field."
(on if he's planning on playing next week) "It's a day-by-day thing. Every week, you're trying to hope that you can be out there on Sunday. Yeah, I hope I can play next week."
(on if he made a lot of progress this week) "Yeah, I feel like I made progress, but the main thing is trying to get to full speed. That's the big thing right now and I haven't been able to get to that yet, so that's why I'm not playing this week."
(on the how the Texans are approaching his injury) "Well, I think they would handle it with anybody the same way. You don't want to go out on the field and put yourself out there and you can't go out and play like you can play. Who wants to go out on the field and see a half-speed Andre Johnson? That's not a good thing. You'll be out there hurting your team and you can have somebody out there who can go out there and give it all they got and make plays for you. I'll just be sitting on the sideline again cheering my guys on. Like I said, it's been frustrating because I want to be out there, but at the same time, I'm just working my butt off trying to get back."
(on what percentage he is at right now) "Probably 70, 75 percent. The biggest thing right now is I can run. I've been running for a couple weeks now. It's just trying to explode and really open up and run full speed. That's the thing I haven't been able to do, so that's something I'll continue to work on and hopefully as the week goes by, it'll get better."
(on if there's any pain) "No, it's just tugging, but that's part of it. Those things are going to happen when you have procedures done. You just have to get used to not doing things that you normally do. Like I said, it's just part of the process and I'll just keep working on it and trying to get better."
