If Foreman is active against the Colts, I don't think O'Brien will put a huge work load on him right out of the gate. We may only see him touch the ball 5 to 7 times against the Colts, maybe more, maybe less. Then, he may have a few more touches next week, and the week after that, a few more touches. By the end of the season, he should have full confidence in his Achilles and be back fully going into the playoffs on relatively fresh legs. We'll see, but that's what I believe could most likely happen.
That is possible, but what if the Colts are not a very good team. Winning half your games means you are looking past quite a few teams. == This looks like a 24-10 winner for the Good Guys.
Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see he was activated and was hoping to see him get to play this year. I am hoping he can be an impactful player and not saying it can't happen, but I have no expectation it will based on the injury he is coming back from. I am hoping he proves me wrong. I just don't have your optimism, Jam. I am very eager to find out out how the post injury Foreman compares to the pre-injury Foreman. I don't think confidence will be the limiting factor. I am afraid he will loose too much quickness and explosiveness out of the cut. As athletes age, there comes a point where they still have the instincts, but the body just can't do it anymore. The RB can't see the hole, but can't get there before it closes. In the NFL those windows are tight and close quickly. This injury is like adding 10 (totally arbitrary number here) years to the players. We really have no idea what to expect from him until he hits the field.
They had to do it now, or IR for the season. I'm not expecting to see him on Gameday 45 roster anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong.
I don't expect foreman to play for at least another two weeks. He's a long shot to return to his former self. And it's not like he was the second coming of Eric Dickerson before the injury. A torn Achilles is extremely difficult to recover from. That's a two year recovery process for a rb to return to his former skill set.
Might as well activate Foreman and see if he can help for one game. I'm with Doc; I don't think he'll ever be useful on an extended basis no matter how the injury is handled.
Here's what you have to remember. Foreman is young. The healing factor for younger people is quite a bit quicker and better then when you get to 30. He could heal up just fine in a year and be back to playing at a high level because he's so young. His age could go to his benefit in this. He did have a pretty serious rupture of the Achilles after all. That is a career ending injury in allot of cases, but the younger a person is the higher the chance they can return to form. He may not, but then again, he could be just fine and back to form quite quickly. We'll see soon enough.
I suspect they didn't IR him so that they could get a better idea of what they have going into the draft based on a bit of game play. I suspect we will draft a somewhat similar back fairly early.
I don't even think Foreman will be active this week. Perhaps next week. Could be wrong but that's my take. As far as taking him off the exempt list instead of keeping him on IR, I think it's a blend of what Edo said which is more or less a short evaluation period... and some extra injury insurance in case Miller or Blue go down (knock on wood) He's not worth 10 points in a game. That's kind of fantasy land at this point.
That's not entirely accurate. And today, because of significant advances in science and medicine, athletes are likely to come back, not only as good as before surgery, but in some cases, actually stronger. Read this article from 2014 by Dr. Christopher Geary, Chief of Sports Medicine at Tufts Medical Center. Achilles Tendon Ruptures in the NFL
Just for curiosity, do you know the ages of those RB's? I've always leaned towards the idea that the younger a player is the better their chances of returning. Clowney has bounced back from an injury that many thought would end his NFL career or render him half the athlete he was before the injury. If he returned. Worth noting......I'm still not on board with giving him a new contract, the Texans should consider themselves lucky that he returned long enough to fulfill the team's investment of drafting him in RD1-01. He was forced to learn a new position at the NFL level and was rewarded with a Pro Bowl selection. Texans should pat themselves on the back, tag him, then trade him for a couple of picks. Then he will have really served the Texans well.
I didn't read the article, but tell me a RB who tore his achilles and made it back to his previous level of play. CnD would much better than me at discussing this topic.
I can't really tell you that because I couldn't even find a running back in Foreman's age range that has even torn his Achilles. They're are several older backs that had difficulty, but they were already on the back side of their career. I can tell you there is a Texan that ruptured his Achilles and still played at a high level throughout his career. That whould be Demaryius Thomas. His was in 2012.