Dre’s place as top Texan warrants a ceremony to retire 80

It is over for the greatest Texan. Just like that. And the way Andre Johnson went out was so No. 80.

Quiet. Subtle. Completely on his own terms and only when Dre was ready to do it his way.

Johnson, 35, suddenly ended 14 seasons Monday, walking away as one of the NFL’s greatest wide receivers.

He is absolutely, unquestionably the best Texan to ever wear red and blue.

So this is very, very simple: 80 should never be worn by another Texan again, unless it’s to honor Johnson’s legacy.

Make Dre the first player in franchise history to have his number retired. Protect and safeguard his jersey in a future museum.

Whatever Bob McNair’s Texans decide, the easiest decision that can be made is turning Johnson’s abrupt retirement — no teary-eyed news confer

ence, no grandiose public statement — into the first building block for the decades that follow.

A Ring of Honor built around Johnson’s number and name.

Dre Day on national TV at NRG Stadium, with 12 often unglorious years in Houston and all those less-than-average quarterbacks instantly replaced with the only memories that will last.

Numbers tell the story

Johnson sacrificing his body for the Texans. Johnson digging out balls and unearthing yards for the Texans. Johnson being targeted 1,640 times, catching 1,012 passes, racking up 13,597 yards and recording 64 receiving touchdowns as the greatest Texan this city has seen.

“He’ll go down as one of the best receivers to ever play the game,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said. “He had great size, great hands, very instinctive player, could run all the routes. Throughout his career, he did a lot of different things.

“I’ve had the fortune of coaching some potential Hall of Fame receivers in him and Randy Moss. … Andre will go down as one of the best to ever play.”

As awkward and difficult as the last two seasons were for longtime fans — Johnson fleeing in spite to Indianapolis, then nearly completing his AFC South tour in Tennessee — his retirement should begin a healing process that’s been years in the making.

The contract disputes and front-office fights won’t matter. O’Brien versus “40 catches” Dre; general manager Rick Smith refusing to back down at the negotiating table; McNair getting frustrated with Johnson’s at-times selfish ways — it will all be lost in the wash of local sports history.

It’ll just be Johnson in 2003, the No. 3 overall pick of the draft, fresh-faced at 22 and the beginning of everything that was to come for the just-born Texans.

Johnson from 2008-10, setting career marks as one of the NFL’s strongest offensive weapons and a one-man show who always gave all.

And then Johnson in 2012, racking up a career-high 1,598 yards while the Texans reached a franchise-best 12-4.

“Just an incredible guy,” veteran linebacker Brian Cushing said. “When you’re 21 years old and you come into the locker room and see someone like that — someone you grew up watching — it’s kind of surreal to play with someone like that. My experience with him was just awesome.”

Awkward ending

It never was the same after the peak. Matt Schaub fell apart. Johnson kept digging in his heels and burying his head while waiting for the answer at QB that never came.

At one point, it really was Johnson vs. the Texans. Dre dreaming of a private island to get away from all the chaos. The Texans privately figuring out how they could move on from 80 without pushing him away forever.

Then Monday. Johnson retiring midseason, just after old friend and famous ex-Texan Arian Foster also walked away for good.

“They’re on the Mount Rushmore of Texans players, really. But especially Andre,” said Marc Vandermeer, Texans play-byplay announcer and vice president of broadcasting. “We debate, ‘Who’s the greatest Texan? Is it J.J. (Watt)? Is it Andre?’ Well, in the longevity department, Andre wins that and what he’s meant to this team. For so long, he was one of the main reasons to watch the Texans. He was the one player the Texans had who transcended the organization.”

Save for Duane Brown, Cushing and a few remaining holdouts, the old Texans are all gone. The new era — Brock Osweiler, O’Brien, $72 million for a QB — sits at 5-3. And still hasn’t won a darn thing that counts.

The Texans are 102-130 alltime with two wild-card playoff victories to their name. As crazy as it sounds, Johnson was the main on-field architect of all that. And you know how irreplaceable he was to the “success” if you watched 4-12 become 2-14, then 12-4, then 2-14 again.

Man of action, not words

Johnson could be so quiet you could barely hear him speak. As the years went by, his public voice only became softer. In his last days with the Texans, you literally had to be within arm’s reach just to understand what he was saying.

He could be misunderstood. He was often overlooked and taken for granted.

He also was hilarious, a locker-room uniter with one of the brightest smiles on Kirby Drive — when the doors were closed and only his real friends were around.

“He’s a jokester,” cornerback Johnathan Joseph said in 2014. “He likes to clown around and laugh a lot. He’s got a big personality.”

My lasting memory of 80: Christmas time. Dre taking in-need kids on a dream-like shopping spree. They got everything they wanted. He pulled out his credit card, signed the insane bill, then grinned wide while holding up a receipt that almost stretched from his head to his feet.

“What I saw off the field was all the things he did for the children of this city,” O’Brien said. “The kids that maybe didn’t come from much and he was able to provide them with Christmas presents or things during Thanksgiving or clothes. … People are really important to the guy. He’s a very quiet guy. When he spoke, everybody listened.”

I spent a lot of time around Johnson at the end of 2014, when there was a very good chance he would never play for the Texans again. He swore that all he wanted to do was stay in Houston and keep playing for the red and blue. He was building his dream home in his adopted city.

I believed him. I also knew that he and everyone close to him thought Johnson would be forced to leave the entire time.

“The city’s waiting for a winner,” Johnson said that December. “We got to experience it a little bit the two years we made the playoffs. You couldn’t go nowhere. Everywhere you went, fans were going crazy. So you just sit there and imagine if we win a Super Bowl, what it would be like. … I’m hoping that it gets here pretty soon.” Dre’s time has finally come. Will he be the first Texan in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? We’ll see. In time, I believe. But protecting 80, creating a Ring around him and honoring Johnson’s franchise-building legacy with Dre Day at NRG?

That’s one of the smartest decisions McNair’s Texans will ever make.