CINCINNATI — Former Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson wasn’t happy when his one-time teammate and good friend Terrell Owens failed to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the second straight year.

Owens ranks second-all time in receiving yards but bounced from team to team in the latter part of his career due to locker-room issues. Johnson told TMZ this week that he felt Owens exclusion was political.

Owens could make the Hall of Fame eventually, but Johnson’s chances seem unlikely.

Johnson played in the NFL for 11 seasons, 10 with the Bengals and one with the Patriots. He caught 766 passes for 11,059 yards and 67 touchdowns. Johnson made six Pro Bowls, earned four First-Team All-Pro awards and led the NFL in receiving yards in 2006.

Johnson finished his career leading the Bengals in receptions, yards and touchdowns.

Johnson has said repeatedly over the years that he feels that he has earned his way into the Hall of Fame, even once donning a gold jacket during a game that said “Future H.O.F. 20??” He has also criticized the voting process for including criteria other than statistics, particularly in the case of Owens.

Statistically, Johnson’s numbers would make him a long shot for the Hall of Fame.

At the time of his retirement, Johnson ranked 26^th in receptions and yards, and 31^st in receiving touchdowns. Every other receiver of his era was no lower than 10 in any of those categories, with the exception of Michael Irvin, who retired in 1999.

If the receivers of the 2000s were ranked, Johnson probably wouldn’t be top-five in a list that includes Marvin Harrison, Owens, Torry Holt, Hines Ward and Steve Smith, all of whom finished with better numbers.

But it’s also possible to argue that Johnson ranked among the best during his prime. He led the AFC in receiving yards from 2003-06, joining Jerry Rice as the only receiver to lead his conference in receiving yards for four consecutive seasons.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — If you want to copy the blueprint of most successful NFL franchises, it starts with football’s version of a holy trinity: a head coach, a general manager and a quarterback.

After hiring Kyle Shanahan as coach and John Lynch as general manager, the San Francisco 49ers hope they have found their solution for the first two. Now, their attention turns to finding the third and perhaps most important piece, the quarterback.

About a month from now, Colin Kaepernick, the only quarterback the team currently has under contract for 2017, probably will cease to have that designation when he’s expected to opt out of his deal. When he does, he’ll join Blaine Gabbert, Thad Lewis and Christian Ponder as free agents. With Shanahan and Lynch taking over, there’s no guarantee that any of them will be back, though it also can’t be ruled out.

Which means there’s likely a full-blown makeover coming to the Niners’ quarterbacks room. As you’d expect, even before Shanahan officially signed on for the job, there were plenty of rumors and reports connecting the 49ers to various quarterbacks around the league. That speculation is only expected to heat up in the days, weeks and months to come.

It’s too early to pinpoint which direction Shanahan wants to go, especially since he hasn’t even had time to evaluate the various college prospects yet. But, yes, there will be options on the trade and free-agent market that could make sense as short and long-term options of Shanahan’s Niners. There will be no shortage of competition, though as teams like the Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears, New York Jets, Houston Texans, Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos could be in the market for immediate starters, with others like the San Diego Chargers and Arizona Cardinals possibly looking for future solutions.

Brian Hoyer: Hoyer would make sense in a role similar to the one described for Schaub above. It wouldn’t make much sense to bring in both but like Schaub, Hoyer has experience playing for Shanahan and the duo even had some success together in Cleveland. He’d also make a good mentor for a younger quarterback or two and could even be a bridge starter if need be.

MINNEAPOLIS — The children Kyle Rudolph sees hooked up to medical devices at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital — or the parents there with them, trying to force smiles through their kaleidoscopes of emotion — could have just as easily been in his own family.

When the Minnesota Vikings tight end was 15 months old, his younger brother Casey was born with neuroblastoma, an aggressive form of cancer that forms in nerve cells and attacks infants. Casey Rudolph went straight from the hospital where he was born to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he spent the first year of his life undergoing chemotherapy; he had a kidney and adrenal gland removed before beating the disease.

The family returned to the hospital throughout Kyle Rudolph’s childhood; only those times, it was to say thank-you by volunteering. Rudolph’s years at Notre Dame were dotted with trips to children’s hospitals in South Bend, and since 2011, when the Vikings drafted him, Rudolph has been a regular presence as part of the team’s four-decade partnership with the Masonic Children’s Hospital.

Now Rudolph is putting his own imprint on that partnership. He and his wife Jordan announced Tuesday that fundraising has been completed for Kyle Rudolph’s End Zone — a 2,500-square-foot space at the hospital where children and teenagers can play, relax and engage in healing therapies. The goal is to have the space open by the start of the 2017 football season.

“From [the point my brother was born], my mom and dad, myself, countless family members were always in and out of the hospital — me being the 15-month-old big brother, constantly in the way, tripping on his IV cords, medicine lines, just a disaster at all times in the hospital, from what I’ve been told,” Rudolph said Tuesday. “We wanted to come up with an idea: Where’s a place where, not only these patients when healthy enough to get out of their rooms, but where can their families go, where can brothers and sisters go, where can friends and family go?

“Through the course of a five-, 10-, 15-month stay in the hospital, the hours and days and months go by. At times, these people don’t leave their rooms — not because they’re not healthy enough. There’s just nothing else for them to do. You can only play with video games for so long. You can only sit and do puzzles and color coloring books [for so long]. At some point, these kids want to be real kids. We wanted to provide a space for them where, no matter what their situation or circumstance is, they can come down here and be kids.”

Designs for the space, which will redevelop an underutilized corner of the hospital, call for a 7- or 8-foot basketball hoop, a sports simulator with a drop-down screen, a media hub, a kitchen and lounge area, an air hockey table, and a seating area for quiet activities. Rudolph and the project’s architects asked for the input of patients such Casey O’Brien, the former quarterback at Cretin-Derham Hall High School (St. Paul, Minnesota) who spent more than 160 nights in the hospital during two bouts with bone cancer before he was cleared to return to his team and hold for extra points last season.

FRISCO, Texas — A few days before Super Bowl LI, Dak Prescott found himself in Houston’s NRG Stadium at an event for Pepsi.

He looked around, taking mental notes, thinking one day he would be in a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys.

“It just ignites a little fire in me and makes me want to get back to work faster,” Prescott said.

Fifty weeks ago, the Cowboys introduced themselves to Prescott for the first time at the Senior Bowl. He was one of the South team’s quarterbacks. The Cowboys’ staff was coaching the North. As much as the coaches liked Prescott, he was still their seventh-rated quarterback in the draft.

They tried to trade back into the first round to take Paxton Lynch. They traded to move up to take Connor Cook earlier in the fourth round. With their first of two fourth-round picks, they took Charles Tapper. They didn’t take Prescott until the 135th overall pick, a compensatory selection in the fourth round.

The Cowboys’ loss to the Green Bay Packers still hurts Prescott. He and Ezekiel Elliott, as well as the offensive line and some other offensive players, made a postseason trip to Las Vegas. The week in Houston for the Super Bowl was another chance to unwind. He said he will take a couple of weeks off before getting back to work at the end of the month.