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The Houston Texans and fantasy football fans are still in mourning over Arian Foster’s torn Achilles' tendon forcing him to miss the remainder of the season. As usual when a star talent gets injured, the chatter will be about who replaces him and gets the majority of the fantasy value that opens up. Alfred Blue is being talked up as the likely starting running back for Houston going forward. Despite having an extremely cool name, Blue is fool’s gold. Along with Jonathan Grimes and Chris Polk, Blue will split the carries and that already spells bad news for fantasy value of any Texans running back. Batman’s butler Alfred has a better chance at fantasy stardom than Alfred Blue this season.
Houston’s schedule going into the fantasy playoffs is terrible for the running game. Teams like the Tennessee Titans, Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots are either very good at stopping the run or a significantly better team that will take an early lead and cause the Texans to abandon any hopes of a rushing attack. Blue, Grimes and Polk are all backup talents at best and none have shown anything to give you hope they can succeed with the upcoming schedule.
The player that will benefit most from Foster’s absence will be DeAndre Hopkins. Houston’s stud wide receiver already leads the NFL in total targets with 101. The next closest receiver is Julio Jones with 89. While Hopkins was still getting a very high percentage of targets with Foster in the lineup, the Texans were starting to commit more to the run but that will no longer be the case. Houston is going to be one of the most pass-happy team in the league due to the lack of a credible running back and likely trailing early in the majority of games. Hopkins is right there with Julio Jones and Antonio Brown in the conversation for the top wide receiver in fantasy going forward.
Nate Washington’s value should also improve with the passing attempts expected to go up. Last week, Washington caught nine passes on sixteen targets for 127 yards and two touchdowns. Yes, it was in garbage time but that’s quite possibly what the remainder of the Texans season will be like. The aftermath of the Foster injury should make you look to Washington as a sneaky pickup but Hopkins will be the biggest benefactor of the unfortunate news.
