Houston Texans rule Arian Foster out Sunday
By Jason Marcum
The Houston Texans are fading fast and falling hard after they entered the season as a Super Bowl contender. A quick 2-0 start helped keep those beliefs going, but six-straight losses have left them on the brink of being irrelevant before Thanksgiving.
To make matters worse, All-Pro running back Arian Foster aggravated a back injury during the Texans’ Sunday night game against the Indianapolis Colts. He only played the first series of Houston’s 27-24 loss. Foster was limited in practices last week with a hamstring injury that prevented him from finishing the Texans’ Oct. 20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
He missed Wednesday and Thursday’s practice, and the team has now gone ahead and ruled him out for Sunday’s contest vs the Arizona Cardinals:
Texans RB Arian Foster is out Sunday.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 8, 2013
Wade Phillips said RB Arian Foster (back) has seen or will see "2 or 3 specialists." Foster is seeing them locally and traveling 2 c them.
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) November 8, 2013
Foster has visited multiple back specialists this week trying to figure out exactly what’s wrong. He’s been bothered by a series of injuries since the preseason. Foster had injuries to his back, hamstring and calf since the start of training camp. He began training camp on the physically unable to perform list due to the calf injury. Ben Tate is playing injured with broken ribs.
If Foster doesn’t play, the duo of Ben Tate and Dennis Johnson would likely be the first two running backs to get carries, but Deji Karim could also see significant playing time:
"“We haven’t determined that yet,” Phillips said. “I would say Deji Karim has the best chance I guess right now.”"