Houston Texans running back Arian Foster is expected to go under the knife on Friday after he reportedly "tore his groin off the bone" in practice earlier this week.
For the less squeamish who are still with us, this puts his recovery time at anywhere between three-to-six months—meaning that there's no guarantee Foster will play when he is eligible to come off the short-term IR in time for the team's Week 10 game.
Earlier on Wednesday, it was reported that Houston was on the verge of signing Pierre Thomas in order to help overcome the loss of Foster. However, Thomas' agent has since indicated that the two sides were not able to come to an agreement on a new deal:
With Thomas out of the equation for now, attention turns to second-year running back Alfred Blue, who filled in for Foster when the latter missed three games last season. Former Philadelphia Eagles backup Chris Polk is also said to be in the conversation. In addition to this, we can expect Houston to look at the veteran free-agent market for another option.
Fantasy Slant
The Texans are now a team to completely avoid at running back. Without a proven starting quarterback under center and less-than-stellar talent at running back, there isn't much upside at all here. If you are still planning on potentially adding Foster as a late-round option, that's also a situation that could hurt you down the road. While he's eligible to come off the IR in the second half of the season, there's that whole "tore his groin" off the bone thing to look at here.