Houston Texans: Why Trust Arian Foster? | NFL Fantasy Football Rankings

At the end of Arian Foster's junior season at the University of Tennessee, one would have thought there was a place for this young running back at the NFL Draft. In 2007, Foster had an incredible year, with over 1,100 yards rushing and 14 total touchdowns.

Unfortunately for Foster, he decided to come back to Tennessee and play his senior year for the Volunteers. As many college football fans know, Foster and Tennessee suffered a horrible season in 2008, which lead to Foster producing very weak numbers in his final year in college.

Getting in the Hard Way

After the 2009 NFL Draft, Foster was an undrafted free agent that signed with the Houston Texans. Signing with this team made some sense, as the Texans were in the market for a bigger running back (Foster is 6'1", 215 lbs.) to help run with Steve Slaton in their backfield.

While there was a need in the Texans' backfield for a runner like Foster, he would have to wait behind veteran Chris Brown, who was already filling this role on the team.

For most of this season, Foster has participated on the Texans' practice squad, but was officially activated to join the team on November 17th.

While Foster did make an appearance on the team in November, it wasn't until last week (after the team placed Slaton on injured reserve) that Foster actually got a chance to play in his first NFL game.

The early returns from Foster weren't promising, as he ran the football 13 times for only 34 yards (2.6 yards per carry), but he did have an impressive four catches for 54 yards.

A Chance to Help Fantasy Football Owners

Early this week, Texans' Head Coach Gary Kubiak told the press that he was hoping to feature Foster as the Texans starting tailback this week against the Rams. Assuming that Foster actually gets a chance for some major work against the Rams pathetic defense, picking up this running back would be a major waiver wire pickup, as we are now in the fantasy football playoffs.

Unfortunately, fantasy owners are stuck with a very tough decision in regards to Foster. On one hand, he does have a great matchup against the Rams, but on the other hand,  Coach Kubiak has flip-flopped on runners all year.

One moment Kubiak loves a certain runner on this team and the very next moment he is grabbing that player by the collar and throwing him into the dog house.

This is not the type of consistency (or inconsistency) fantasy owners like, and it's the type of decision making that makes most fantasy players avoid a certain team all together.

Sure enough, even this very week, Coach Kubiak has come out and told the press after a practice that Foster has, "a long way to go."

With heavy questions regarding Foster's true workload for this weekend, fantasy owners are now left to question if they should trust this young talent for this week or if they should cut bait and run.

Fantasy Strategy for Using Arian Foster

I currently believe that Foster is worth having on your fantasy roster. Even if you decide not to use him, it doesn't hurt to stash him away from anyone you may be playing in the playoffs this week or in the weeks to come.

As far as using Foster this week, I would only suggest you start him as a flex option if you don't have runners that have been producing for you.

In that situation, it wouldn't hurt to roll the dice on a running back that is playing against one of the worst run defenses in all of football.

The Texans aren't a playoff team, but as we saw last week, they are good enough to roll it up on a very bad football team. This means that Foster should get plenty of work in the second half of this ball game.

NFL Fantasy Football Player Rankings writer Sean E. Douglas: fantasy-info.com