The Houston Texans can finally begin to see a glimmer of light at the end of a long rough tunnel as Arian Foster, their franchise star, has been medically cleared to hit the field.
Foster has been given the go ahead to return to the game of football after spending the final eight games of last season parked on injured reserve following surgery and subsequent rehab for a back injury. It was Foster himself who broke the news on Twitter following a self-imposed long hiatus from the social media site.
The Texans general manager Rick Smith spoke with ESPN.com’s Tanya Ganguli a few weeks ago about the status of Foster’s rehabilitation process. “He’s working hard, he’s in the building, he’s in the training room consistently,” Smith said. “The reports I’m getting from Geoff [Kaplan, head trainer] indicate he’s going to be fine.”
Before being sidelined, Foster ran for 542 yards with a 4.5 average yards per carry in the first eight games of 2013. The Texans running back was coming off of three 1,000 plus-yard seasons with over 10 touchdowns in each of them.
To refer to the 2013 season as underwhelming and disappointing for the Texans would be a crater-sized understatement. They were touted as possible Super Bowl contenders at the start of the season and proceeded to embark on a downward spiral of epic proportions, resulting in the dismissal of Head Coach Gary Kubiak.
The team started out the season with two wins in September and was unable to muster up another victory for the remainder of the year, finishing 2013 with an abysmal 2-14 record.
Will Foster be the beacon to lead this team back to playoff contention?
With a new head coach in Bill O’Brien and a large question mark at the quarterback position, the franchise will be looking to the sixth-year running back to provide leadership and motivation for this deflated team.
Foster will also most likely be shouldering most of the backfield duties in 2014 as well, since Ben Tate recently inked a deal to run the rock in Cleveland for the next two years.
Luckily for the Texans, Foster is healthy and most likely ready to put the disappointment of last season behind him.
With the face of the franchise cleared to participate in all off season workouts, camps and the 2014 regular season, fans can now believe again and look forward to the possibility of more postseason football for the Houston Texans.
