Are we using Foster correctly?

[Oz Texan]

I only bring this up because I was looking at this years numbers. Ill throw some out there.

This year he has only 12 receptions for a total of 77 yards.
Thats 1.5 rec per game and 9.6 yards per game.

Compare that to:

2011 season totals. 53 receptions for 617 yards. and 2 tds.
Thats 3.3 rpg and 38.5 ypg

2010 season totals. 66 receptions for 604 yards and 2 tds.
Thats 4.1 rpg and 37.7 ypg

I know the reception totals and the yardage totals do not seem that great per game. But what this means is that we are not utilizing him to his fullest. We are normally a great screen team. Foster is a huge threat catching the ball. Teams are not having to game plan for that as we are not throwing him the ball. We have basically lessend our offensive potential this way.

The screen goes along way to allowing our inside run game to flourish which is part of the reason why we have low ypc totals. If we can not make the defense clear the middle sometimes we will continue with the low ypc games. While also continuing to lower the NFL life expectancy of our greatest threat by having him run the ball so many times per game.

Great defenses like the upcomming Bears game are going to plug the middle all night long because thats where most of our runs go. We have seen it this year on numerous occations where we should have run all over a team and just did not do it. Throw the ball more to Foster on the outside or behind the blitz will go along way to improving our ability to run the ball on these teams going forward.

I also thing that we should do more toss sweeps than we do now. The Bills game we had some very positive sweeps. This left me wondering why we do not do more.

[NastyNate]

We have been. If you haven't noticed, Foster has had the dropsies this year. I don't have the exact totals but he's looked plain bad in the passing department when we throw to him on easy dump offs. That definitely hurts Matt Schaub's trust in him. Plus we continually look for the play downfield and defenses sell out to Foster no matter where he lines up.

[DocBar]

Originally Posted by NastyNate

We have been. If you haven't noticed, Foster has had the dropsies this year. I don't have the exact totals but he's looked plain bad in the passing department when we throw to him on easy dump offs. That definitely hurts Matt Schaub's trust in him. Plus we continually look for the play downfield and defenses sell out to Foster no matter where he lines up.

That about sums it up. Good post.

[EllisUnit]

Originally Posted by NastyNate

We have been. If you haven't noticed, Foster has had the dropsies this year. I don't have the exact totals but he's looked plain bad in the passing department when we throw to him on easy dump offs. That definitely hurts Matt Schaub's trust in him. Plus we continually look for the play downfield and defenses sell out to Foster no matter where he lines up.

see no meat is making his hands weak and shaky

[dc_txtech]

Originally Posted by NastyNate

We have been. If you haven't noticed, Foster has had the dropsies this year. I don't have the exact totals but he's looked plain bad in the passing department when we throw to him on easy dump offs. That definitely hurts Matt Schaub's trust in him. Plus we continually look for the play downfield and defenses sell out to Foster no matter where he lines up.

Good post. I would like to know the exact numbers or have tape of each of the screens we've thrown this season. It seems like the few times we have tried it, it's been a drop or the play has been blown up.

[HJam72]

My theory is that, because he no longer eats meat, Foster smells different and is easier to pick up in the backfield. It's easier to key on him.

I'm glad to add to this very serious discussion.

[SCOTTexans]

If he is still our runningback... then we are still using him correctly...

[EllisUnit]

Originally Posted by hjam72

my theory is that, because he no longer eats meat, foster smells different and is easier to pick up in the backfield. It's easier to key on him.

I'm glad to add to this very serious discussion.

haha ...msr

[PapaL]

As long as he's getting the ball we are using him correctly.

If we ask him to start at MLB then I'd be concerned.

[Texan_Bill]

Originally Posted by PapaL

As long as he's getting the ball we are using him correctly.

If we ask him to start at MLB then I'd be concerned.

I might actually be cool with us using him as an ILB!!

[SAMURAITEXAN]

I don't mean to offend anyone but, are we asking if Kubiak and Dennison using Foster correctly? Since when one of our TTC member became more knowledgeable about Texans' scheme than these two?

[eriadoc]

If by "using correctly", you mean putting him behind a good O-line and watching him befuddle opponents, then no. The coaches made the decision to put Newton/Harris and Caldwell/Jones out there.

[chenjy9]

Originally Posted by eriadoc

If by "using correctly", you mean putting him behind a good O-line and watching him befuddle opponents, then no. The coaches made the decision to put Newton/Harris and Caldwell/Jones out there.

Who else did you want out there instead?

[ObsiWan]

Originally Posted by NastyNate

We have been. If you haven't noticed, Foster has had the dropsies this year. I don't have the exact totals but he's looked plain bad in the passing department when we throw to him on easy dump offs. That definitely hurts Matt Schaub's trust in him. Plus we continually look for the play downfield and defenses sell out to Foster no matter where he lines up.

This was addressed in another thread. I don't buy into that "dropsies" crap. The guys on 610am, this morning, were discussing the fact that Foster had NO passes thrown in his direction in the Bills game and before that was being targeted, on average, once per game. Their theory is - and I think it has some merit - that with Foster getting 24-25 carries/game AND with Tate basically out of action (and who knows how long before he's back to 100%) they want to limit Foster's total touches each game. How effective do you guys think he'd be come post-season time if we piled 5,6, or 7 catches on top of his 24-25 carries/game??

If Tate recovers soon or if Forsett steps up to be a more effective back, then maybe Foster's carries go down and his catches go back up so that he's getting 15-18 carries/game plus 4-6 catches/game.

Make sense? It does to me.


Edit: Someone with access to ProFootball Focus or some like site can verify the targeting "data" the 610 am guys were spouting this morning.

[ChampionTexan]

Originally Posted by ObsiWan

This was addressed in another thread. I don't buy into that "dropsies" crap. The guys on 610am, this morning, were discussing the fact that Foster had NO passes thrown in his direction in the Bills game and before that was being targeted, on average, once per game. Their theory is - and I think it has some merit - that with Foster getting 24-25 carries/game AND with Tate basically out of action (and who knows how long before he's back to 100%) they want to limit Foster's total touches each game. How effective do you guys think he'd be come post-season time if we piled 5,6, or 7 catches on top of his 24-25 carries/game??

If Tate recovers soon or if Forsett steps up to be a more effective back, then maybe Foster's carries go down and his catches go back up so that he's getting 15-18 carries/game plus 4-6 catches/game.

Make sense? It does to me.


Edit: Someone with access to ProFootball Focus or some like site can verify the targeting "data" the 610 am guys were spouting this morning.

If the 610 guys said once per game on average, they're full of crap, (well, actually they're full of crap regardless, but that would just be an example of it). The fact that after 8 games he has 12 receptions might be the first clue he's being targeted more than once per game. I've noticed myself that there have been a few passes thrown Foster's way that were catchable, but not caught.

According to ESPN, through yesterday's game, Foster had been targeted 26 times this year (or 3.25 times per game). While it is down from prior years (5.4/game for '10 and '11 combined), it's not exactly 1 per game. More importantly is that of those 26 targets, he has 12 receptions or a completion rate of 46.1%. In 2010 and 2011, his completion rate was 78.6 and 73.6 percent respectively.

2012 Stats: (Foster is #218 after this week's game)
LINK

Career Stats:
LINK

[ObsiWan]

Originally Posted by ChampionTexan

If the 610 guys said once per game on average, they're full of crap, (well, actually they're full of crap regardless, but that would just be an example of it). The fact that after 8 games he has 12 receptions might be the first clue he's being targeted more than once per game. I've noticed myself that there have been a few passes thrown Foster's way that were catchable, but not caught.

According to ESPN, through yesterday's game, Foster had been targeted 26 times this year (or 3.25 times per game). While it's a little bit down from prior years (4.1/game for '10 and '11 combined), it's not exactly 1 per game. More importantly is that of those 26 targets, he has 12 receptions or a completion rate of 46.1%. In 2010 and 2011, his completion rate was 78.6 and 73.6 percent respectively.

2012 Stats: (Foster is #218 after this week's game)
LINK

Career Stats:
LINK

Thanks for double-checking. Had I remembered ESPN keeps those stats I'd have done it myself. I try not to go there any more than I have to.

One thing the ESPN - and nfl.com - stats are missing that ProFootball Focus might have is how many of those non-connections were drops and how many were broken up or Schaub deciding to throw it over Arian's head when he sees that a catch would just get Foster killed.

[ChampionTexan]

Originally Posted by ObsiWan

Thanks for double-checking. Had I remembered ESPN keeps those stats I'd have done it myself. I try not to go there any more than I have to.

One thing the ESPN - and nfl.com - stats are missing that ProFootball Focus might have is how many of those non-connections were drops and how many were broken up or Schaub deciding to throw it over Arian's head when he sees that a catch would just get Foster killed.

Yeah, one correction I made after you quoted me was that the targets per game for '10 and '11 was corrected (picked up the wrong column and corrected it later).

I don't have the "catchable vs. non-catchable" stats you mentions, but as I alluded to in my previous post, there's been several times this year where I've seen Arian miss receptions that I felt he should have had, and while anything's possible, there's no reason I know of that the percentage of non-catchable targets should be appreciably different than prior years where his completion rate was in excess of 70%.

[ObsiWan]

Originally Posted by ChampionTexan

Yeah, one correction I made after you quoted me was that the targets per game for '10 and '11 was corrected (picked up the wrong column and corrected it later).

I don't have the "catchable vs. non-catchable" stats you mentions, but as I alluded to in my previous post, there's been several times this year where I've seen Arian miss receptions that I felt he should have had, and while anything's possible, there's no reason I know of that the percentage of non-catchable targets should be appreciably different than prior years where his completion rate was in excess of 70%.

Well, even if all 14 disconnections were drops, that's not a lot. That's IF he straightens up and gets his pass catching focus back. I haven't seen all the games so I can't comment. I just recall some impossible catches he made last year and it's hard to believe he lost that ability in a year.

....and please, no vegan jokes.
thank you

[NastyNate]

NFL Game rewind, it's great, check it out and re-watch the first 3 games then you'll see why Foster's targets have declined.

[NastyNate]

Originally Posted by dc_txtech

Good post. I would like to know the exact numbers or have tape of each of the screens we've thrown this season. It seems like the few times we have tried it, it's been a drop or the play has been blown up.

The only one I can recall is against Tennessee where he snuck out to the left sideline for 8 yards for the first down. Other than that it's the safety or cb coming down to blow up the play or he just drops the ball.