Texas Houston owners Bob McNair apologized Friday afternoon for comments he made during an owners meeting about national anthem protests.

McNair previously said about the national anthem protests, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison.”

It didn’t take long for him to change his tune and apologize. He released the following statement on Twitter:

I regret I used that expression. I never meant to hurt anyone and I was not referring to our players. I used a figure of speech that was never intended to be taken literally. I would never characterize our players or our league that way and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it.

Statement from Texans Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert C. McNair: pic.twitter.com/EXdwKZ4y4x — Texans PR (@TexansPR) October 27, 2017

We all knew it would only be a matter of time before McNair had to walk back his comments, and it turned out it only took a couple of hours.

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