Arian Foster, Alfred Blue's Instant Fantasy Reaction After Week 5

Arian Foster's hamstring appears to be doing just fine. The Houston Texans running back, who spent the entire week on the injury report with a lingering hamstring problem, reasserted himself as the clear No. 1 back Sunday.   

After a full half of offensive futility from both sides, Foster broke through in the second half. He rushed for scores of 15 and one yard en route to a 23-carry, 157-yard performance as the Texans lost to the Dallas Cowboys 20-17 in an overtime nailbiter. 

Foster was the only Texans offensive player to find consistent success. Ryan Fitzpatrick completed no pass longer than 20 yards, dinking and dunking underneath on a series of aborted drives. Fitzpatrick finished with only 154 yards on his 25 attempts.

Player	Carries	Yards	Receptions	Yards	Targets	TD
Arian Foster	23	157	2	15	5	2
Alfred Blue	5	16	0	0	0	0

While Foster was not involved in the passing game—he had two catches for 15 yards—it was made readily apparent that he was getting the lion's share of the work over Alfred Blue. Blue, a rookie sixth-round pick out of LSU, started in place of Foster when he missed the team's Week 3 loss to the New York Giants. He received nine carries to Foster's eight last week, making some believe the Texans would still be working a split close to 50-50. 

Coming into Sunday there was still a bit of uncertainty about whether Foster would suit up at all.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

"I'm just going to go out there every day and see how it feels," Foster told reporters. "If it feels good enough to play, I'll suit up."

Fantasy owners were given plenty of head's up to keep Foster in their lineup, but this is an interesting dynamic. The former Tennessee back remains an injury risk. Hamstrings are notoriously difficult to recover from and are prone to re-injury. With Foster having played the last two weeks, he's not had a ton of rest and recovery time to get back to 100 percent.

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

The Texans don't have a bye until Week 10, so it's hard to expect you'll feel 100 percent confident with Foster's health for more than a month. His sketchy injury history also has to play a factor; Foster missed eight games last season and has played a full season twice in his five years as a starter. Running backs are more prone to injury than most positions, but Foster has had a cornucopia of ailments throughout his career. 

It's unlikely he'll head into any game without a few bumps or bruises. But Foster is a workhorse back in an offense that's going to have to run a ton to have any level of success. He has RB1 value by the sheer volume of his workload, and this is the third time in four weeks this season he's lived up to the hype. Keep an eye on the practice reports going forward, but if Foster is on your roster, he's an every-week start. 

Blue probably isn't worth owning in standard leagues. Even in the event of an injury to Foster, he'll be hanging around on the waiver wire if needed. Or, at the very least, someone of a similar value will be there. Whatever dreams of a timeshare Blue owners had are gone.

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