Arian Foster Needs To Have A Great Season
By Josh Wilson
Arian Foster at one point in his career averaged over 100 yards per game. Since then, he’s been unable to reach that mark again, and at one point, even fell down to 67 yards per game. Now, as the Texans head into a very pivotal season, it proves to be incredibly important for him to get back up (and possibly even beyond) to the elite level we’ve seen him play at before.
Last year was decent, for sure, for Foster. He averaged 95 yards per game, and averaged just under 5 yards per carry.
I have my faith in Foster, I think he’ll easily put up the same numbers he always has throughout his career. My faith, is, however, not as strong in the second string running back, Alfred Blue. Blue certainly has the potential to be a good player, but only has one year under his belt, which makes it difficult for us to judge him.
Blue was impressive in college, getting to nearly seven yards per carry in two seasons in his time at Louisiana State University. Still, he has yet to prove himself in the NFL, which leaves us to put all of our faith in Foster next year.
Last season Blue averaged less than four yards per carry, leaving Foster to do the heavy lifting. But this isn’t anything Foster isn’t used to. In 2013, Jonathan Grimes and Dennis Johnson, the supporting running backs for Foster both averaged less than four yards per attempt as well.
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Although this is nice, and we can recognize that Foster is used to carrying the run game, let’s not forget that there was some decent receiving targets for the Texans quarterbacks to target to make up for the slack. Now, the Texans are without one of their best targets from recent years, Andre Johnson, for the first time in several years.
This year, the wide receivers are not expected to do a whole lot, at least not as much as Johnson could do. They brought in some receivers who haven’t gotten a whole lot of attention in past years, but rightfully so.
Cecil Shorts III, former Jaguar that they brought in, has five years of experience, only totaled just over 500 yards last year.
DeAndre Hopkins offers the most promise from the wide receivers next season, as he did bring in over 1200 yards last year. He can’t do all of the work for the team as far as receiving is concerned, however.
One player that looks somewhat promising is Keshawn Martin. He was only targeted 12 times last season. Although this wasn’t a huge sample size, he was averaging 13 yards per reception last season, and if he could replicate this with more targets, that would be fantastic.
Even so, none of the targets will do as much as Johnson could, I’m almost sure of that. Again, this points all signs to an experienced player stepping up offensively, other than a wide receiver. The quarterback situation hasn’t even been solidified yet, which means we can’t look there either.
This brings us back to running backs, and you guessed it, we’ll have to put our faith in Arian Foster. He’s experienced, and capable. I’m sure, given the opportunity, he’s going to have a fantastic season, and he could be a push for the Texans to make the playoffs.
I do feel like he needs to take himself beyond what he has done in the past in order to help the Texans’ offense thrive.