On Sunday, we mentioned that Texans linebacker Brian Cushing called the Houston fans who cheered Matt Schaub’s leg injury “barbaric.”
Other Texans have chimed in, too.
From quotes distributed by the team, left tackle Duane Brown said, “It’s disgusting. I don’t want to address them first; I want to address the fans that were there until the end cheering us on into the tunnel. We appreciate you loyal fans and the fans that stick by us. For the fans that cheered when he got hurt, that’s disgusting. You can feel how you want about him as a player, but this is his livelihood and how he provides for his family. When a man goes down and he is not able to get up, you don’t know what is wrong with him at that point; that could be the last play of his career and for you to applaud at that -- I have no words for that.”
“That is just tactless and tasteless,” running back Arian Foster said. “I was extremely heated at that. They have to go home and look at themselves in the mirror and if they were born to hurt a man, that’s fine. They can do what they do. The fans can get emotional. That is just not how I was brought up. That is not the kind of man I am. I’ve got to go home and raise a daughter, and teach her right from wrong. That is just not something you do. I don’t care how you feel about a man. You don’t kick him when he is down.”
Receiver Andre Johnson, who has been with the team every year except its first, agreed.
“No class,” Johnson said. “It’s bad when members of the other team are saying that’s messed up that they would do something like that. It just shows no class. It wasn’t all of the fans, but those are the same people when you’re out somewhere with your family and you tell them they can’t have an autograph right now, they are the same people that tell you you’re rude. It’s no class. It just shows what they’re all about. You don’t cheer about anybody being injured. I don’t care who it is. Guys lay their bodies on the line out there on that field. Some guys get injuries and it affects them their whole lives. For them to cheer about something like that, it just shows they have no class.”
“It was ridiculous,” cornerback Kareem Jackson said. “It goes to show at the end of the day who all is with you. There is nobody but us in this locker room. Like I said, we are family. When things are good, they ride the bandwagon with you. They are step by step with you. As soon as things get bad, they boo and do all the other stuff. To be honest, we don’t care about that. We don’t care about who is booing. For us as a group, we have to get better as a team.”
“That disappointed me,” defensive end Antonio Smith said. “Truly disappointing me. To think our fans that cheer for us don’t have emotions is to be a foolish man. I know that our performance affects them too. It disappointed me that they would cheer when somebody goes down hurt or they would cheer a man’s downfall.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed in our fans than at that moment,” guard Wade Smith said. “As far as in the community, giving back to the city, as far as representing an organization the way you want a quarterback to do, for them to cheer at that moment it was extremely disappointing. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. Extremely disappointing.”
“It’s disappointing,” defensive end J.J. Watt said. “You never ever want anybody to cheer an injury. That’s just unacceptable. I sure hope they don’t truly feel that way. That’s a pretty tough life if you’re cheering for somebody else to get injured. That’s a man with a wife and kids, that’s a man who’s given a lot of effort and a lot of work to this city. I sure hope there weren’t a lot of people cheering. I hope that was a very, very small minority.”
“That is disrespectful,” quarterback T.J. Yates said. “The guy is laying there on the ground holding his ankle, and the fans are cheering. For all that guy has done for this city and this team, for the fans to be booing him when he is hurt on the ground, straight up disrespectful.”
Cornerback Jonathan Joseph was more concise, via Paul Gallant of SportsRadio 610 in Houston: “They gonna do that, don’t show the f--k up.”
We like that one the best. If you don’t have a basic level of respect for the men who take extreme physical risks to entertain you, be entertained at home.