Time for the D’Onta Foreman era to begin
D’Onta Foreman provides the Houston Texans with the most upside at the running back position. He is a productive workhorse with a punishing running style. It is time to hand him the keys to the backfield.
My hope was that Houston Texans’ rookie running back D’Onta Foreman learned a lesson from his off-season transgression, and it looks like he just may have.
Patrick Starr of State Of The Texans wrote that Foreman is appreciating the opportunity. This attitude, combined with his performance on the field, show that Foreman is headed in the right direction.
The Deshaun Watson era at quarterback has begun, and we are now at the cusp of the Foreman era at running back. Here are some stats from the Cincinnati Bengals game:
Lamar Miller: 18 carries for 61 yards with an average of 3.4 yards per carry. D’Onta Foreman: 12 carries for 40 yards and an average of 3.3 yards per carry. Pretty even. However, evaluators must look at other variables as well.
Miller is 26 years-old while Foreman is 21 years-old.
Miller stands at 5-feet-10, 220 pounds. And Foreman is 6-feet-1, 233 pounds.
Miller couldn’t carry the load of a three-down back for 16 games last year which was the heaviest workload of his NFL career. He played 14 of 16 games. Miller’s heaviest workload for the Dolphins came in 2014 with 216 carries. Last year with the Texans he had 268 carries. His average per carry fell from 5.1 yards down to 4 yards.
Gauging Foreman’s college production, in 2016 at the University of Texas, he ran the ball 323 times for 2,028 rushing yards for an average of 6.3 yards per carry. In 2014 and 2015 he didn’t play as much but when you combine all three years his average is 6.4 yards per rush.
To me, Foreman has the bigger upside. He’s younger, has less mileage, is bigger and thicker than Miller. Translation? Forcing more missed tackles, breaking bigger runs, a punishing style and wearing down an opposing defense.
Foreman is a rookie and has to make his bones?! To that I say colleges are producing NFL ready players. Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys, Todd Gurley of the Los Angeles Rams, Kareem Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, Dalvin Cook of the Minnesota Vikings, Jordan Howard of the Chicago Bears and Leonard Fournette of the Jacksonville Jaguars are all cases in point.
Want another big endorsement? Bill Belichick and the Patriots had serious interest in Foreman. In fact, they had several workouts with Foreman before the draft. Had he fallen to them, we would be talking about the Patriots steal in the 2017 draft.
It is time to usher in the Foreman era!
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Comment below and tell us whether you think it’s time to give the starting running back job to Foreman.