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    Arian Foster Underpaid

    Arian Foster proves he's underpaid: With Adrian Peterson rightly out, Foster makes strong case he's No. 1 — no devaluing this

    Chris Baldwin
    Sep 15, 2014 | 5:54 am

    J.J. Watt is the $100 Million Man — and sudden touchdown tight end. Andre Johnson will make $10.5 million this season and he carries the Hall of Fame credentials to go with it.

    Arian Foster? He'll take home a somewhat superstar modest $6 million in 2014 and carry the Houston Texans the whole way.

    Anyone who thinks Foster isn't worth it, that he's just another one of those devalued running backs, is seeing their theories get ground into useless dust. Running backs don't matter much in the NFL anymore — unless you have a running back like Arian Foster.

    His feet (and hands, and shoulders, and legs) are all over the Texans' surprising 2-0 start. Watt may be the highlight maker. First-year coach Bill O'Brien may be the innovator. But Foster is the relentless heartbeat of these reborn Texans.

    Through two games, Foster's racked up 270 total yards on 59 touches. He is the Texans offense.

    He gashes the Oakland Raiders for 138 rushing yards, knocks the fight right out of the supposedly fearsome Black Hole long before the fourth quarter rolls around Sunday afternoon. It ends 30-14 Texans, but even before the turnovers begin piling up in the Texans favor, No. 23's left the Raiders punch drunk.

    Afterwards, Raiders safety Charles Woodson — the former Heisman winner from Michigan who's seen it all — talks about being "embarrassed" by his team's showing. Woodson shouldn't be so hard on his teammates.

    Arian Foster is just that good. In fact, with Adrian Peterson having taken himself out of the game with that scarily horrific child abuse "discipline" of his 4-year-old son, it's no big stretch to declare that Foster is the best running back in football still standing. He's certainly in the short conversation with LeSean McCoy and Jamaal Charles.

    Through two games, Foster's racked up 270 total yards on 59 touches. He is the Texans offense. Everyone knows No. 23 is the key to everything the Ryan Fitzpatrick-limited Texans do. Yet teams still cannot stop him.

    Not with eight-man fronts. Not with shadows. Not with the kitchen sink and them some.

    Still think running backs are overvalued in today's pass-centric NFL? Then, you haven't been watching Arian Foster and one of the real compelling stories of the beginning of this NFL season.

    "I hear that a lot, about the running backs being devalued and I do understand the point that’s being made," O'Brien says in his postgame press conference. "But I think it depends on each team and who your running back is."

    In other words, O'Brien has Arian Foster and you don't. Bill Belichick would value running backs more too if he had Foster. Belichick and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft both oohed over Foster in a playoff game past. You win with your best players and the simple truth is the Belichick Patriots never had a running back who was even close to one of their best players.

    If they had such a talent, they'd treat the tailback position differently.

    This is why this idea that O'Brien wouldn't really value a running back like Foster always rang hollow. Yet it got repeated all offseason and through training camp. Some local sports talk radio hosts — particularly 610 AM's Sean Pendergast, otherwise known as Nick Wright's ghost writer — even absurdly suggested that Foster stood in danger of getting cut after this season.

    Still think running backs are overvalued in today's pass-centric NFL? Then, you haven't been watching Arian Foster.

    Of course, that was never happening. You don't cut one of the best offensive players in football to save a little cap space. Arian Foster's contract isn't outdatedly high. He's a relative bargain at $6 million next season and $6.5 million in 2016 too. Even if he's a running back, the position the league's not supposed to need stars at anymore.

    McCoy will bank $9.75 million next season as part of a contract he signed after Foster's deal — and even in Chip Kelly's offense, he's not that much of a better player than Foster. There's a good chance Foster will prove the Eagle's not even as good as him this season.

    Yet, Foster hears idiots talk about him being a future cut because it's "The Patriot Way."

    Don't count on it. Not with this running back. Bill O'Brien knows what he has.

    "I don’t really listen to people man," Foster says from Oakland in an interview broadcast on Houston TV. "Nobody really knows what they talking about."

    The NFL's No. 1 Running Back?

    With Foster, the talk is once again of dominance. Suddenly, the injury worries look more overblown than Miley Cyrus' forced attempts to hold onto her twerking fame. And O'Brien looks like a genius for wisely holding his lifeline tailback out of the entire preseason.

    Foster rips off a 40-yard run on the first offensive drive of the game against Oakland. He has 93 yards just 24 minutes into the game. By the time, O'Brien lets rookie Alfred Blue take on a little more of the burden, the Raiders are long dead and done.

    O'Brien's influence on this team is undeniable. It can be seen in the way the Texans' defensive backs are racing to recover after getting beat and punching out footballs for turnovers. D.J. Swearinger does it last week against the Redskins. Veteran Johnathan Joseph does it this week to the shell-shocked Raiders.

    In both instances, the Texans turn bad plays into touchdown-saving turnovers going the other way.

    O'Brien's team wins the turnover battle 4-0 this Sunday. They get that fun J.J. Watt touchdown (and the more traditional Watt Swat that leads to Brooks Reed's first career interception). They go 9 for 15 on third down with some nice, largely accurate Fitzpatrick passing.

    But mostly they have Arian Foster.

    "He’s a really, really talented guy," Fitzpatrick says in his own little postgame presser broadcast on CSN Houston. "He’s a very patient runner. He’s a lot of fun to watch. It’s fun to hand the ball off to him, even in situations where maybe we are running uphill and we don’t have the best numbers."

    It's awfully nice to have a real, underpaid star.

    Arian Foster has more than proven the doubters wrong through the first two games of the Houston Texans' season.

    Arian Foster bow
      
    Houston Texans
    Arian Foster has more than proven the doubters wrong through the first two games of the Houston Texans' season.
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    J.J. Watt Dance Master

    J.J. Watt's supporting cast needs to be shown the money now: Keeping Case Keenum at QB key to retaining rightful MVP's help

    Chris Baldwin
    Dec 28, 2014 | 11:52 pm
    J.J. Watt's supporting cast needs to be shown the money now: Keeping Case Keenum at QB key to retaining rightful MVP's help
    Photo by Michelle Watson/CultureMapSnap
    J.J. Watt spent most of the Houston Texans' season-ending win over the Jaguars dancing.

    J.J. Watt breaks into a shimmy, rolling his hips like he never could in that omnipresent Verizon commercial. The most dominant defensive football player of this generation is forever dancing in the Houston Texans last game of the season.

    It's almost like Watt's determined to prove to everyone that he really can dance — while winning the NFL MVP.

    When you're this good, why not multi-task? So Watt breaks into dance after his first sack, after his second sack and after the safety that accounts for his third. He shimmies after nearly every time that "Turn Down For What" — or "Turn Down For Watt" in Texans land — song blares over the NRG Stadium sound system. Which seemingly happens after almost every defensive play on this rollicking Sunday Funday.

    Watt's day ends with those three sacks (making him the first player in NFL history to record two separate 20-sack seasons), a forced fumble, a safety, six tackles and a 23-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. It doesn't add up to a playoff berth for Bill O'Brien's great first-year turnaround story, but that should hardly deny Watt his rightful league MVP.

    "I love this team, love this city. I have a lot of friends here. And I almost feel like we're finally here (as a team). It'd be sad to leave."

    MVP voters who won't vote for Watt now because of no playoffs are essentially saying their decision hinged on whether the Baltimore Ravens would choke enough to completely blow a playoff berth. How does that make sense?

    No, Justin James Watt is the 2014 NFL MVP. He earns it by getting the most out of his freakish athletic ability on every single play.

    "I’m trying to make sure they get their money’s worth and our fans get their money’s worth because they deserve that," Watt says. "I was a kid once. I grew up watching a team, I know what it’s like.

    "You want to be that superstar that every average Joe would be if he was a superstar."

    Watt is that worthy $100 Million Superstar, but even a supernova needs some support. And that's why O'Brien's team finds itself at a critical telling point. Watt played at a superhuman level all season. But the Texans truly took off when the rest of the defense caught on, giving defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel the confidence to unleash his full array of disguised coverages and fronts. Over the last month of the season, the Texans arguably played the third best defense in the entire NFL, behind only the defending champion Seahawks and maybe the Rams.

    Now a huge chunk of that defense — six of the 11 starters — are up for free agency and another vital piece (cornerback Johnathan Joseph) could be facing the kind of pay cut scenario that everyone else is trying to force onto Andre Johnson. Watt's great, but he needs many of these guys for the Texans to go anywhere in the future.

    This Texans defense can be great. If its key pieces are kept together.

    "This is something we can look at and build on," safety Kendrick Lewis says after the Texans play lights-out defense for the third straight week. "We have to pick up where we left off. I believe in the defense that we have here, the type of attitude that we have.

    "It is like blood in the water. We want a taste for more."

    Kareem Jackson's Future Keys All

    Cornerback Kareem Jackson is the No. 1 must sign by far, but the Texans would be wise to re-sign Lewis, nose tackle Ryan Pickett (a perfect veteran fit for Crennel's defense) and linebacker Brooks Reed who has been a consistent playmaker for weeks now as well.

    "Of course," Reed responds when asks if he wants to return. "I love this team, love this city. I have a lot of friends here. And I almost feel like we're finally here (as a team). It'd be sad to leave."

    The most disruptive force in football will be one lonely $100 Million Man, if Houston doesn't retain much of this company.

    Desire doesn't necessarily equal reality in the hard-line NFL though. If O'Brien gave Case Keenum a real chance at quarterback, the Texans would have more money to bring back more of their defensive core — and add more important pieces. But it'd be a stretch to expect this coach to think that way.

    It'd be a shame to see this emerging defense disbanded though. Watt & Friends aren't just making Blake Bortles — an offensively challenged rookie who likely would have been the Texans quarterback if Jadeveon Clowney wasn't in the draft — look lost. They flummoxed Andrew Luck and Joe Flacco in back-to-back weeks too.

    "Our defensive kind of changed late in the year," Reed says. "We ran a lot more disguises, made it hard for quarterbacks to see what coverages we were in. It's allowed a bunch of guys to make plays."

    Watt is not the only making them now — the way he was during that 2-14 nightmare last season. Jared Crick — the third-year defensive end who is under his rookie contract for another season — sacks Bortles, drops a running back for another loss and knocks down a pass against Jacksonville. Reed runs sideline to sideline, tracking running backs with his long hair flapping behind his helmet. Jackson . . . well, the once-mocked Jackson just changes everything for these Texans.

    The most disruptive force in football will be one lonely $100 Million Man, if Houston doesn't retain much of this company.

    "I’d definitely love to be back," Jackson says. "At the end of the day, I understand the business side of it. For me, I just have to sit back and just see what happens."

    This Texans defense has come too far to lose key pieces and essentially be left needing to start over learning Crennel's complex schemes in training camp. Watt's the MVP that everything centers around, but he cannot be Bob McNair's only big defensive buy this football year.

    There's a solution staring the Texans in the face: Give Case Keenum the chance to be the effective, low-cost winning starting quarterback. Develop a passer with tons of potential and keep the supporting stars on the other side of the football.

    "We have a chance to be a really explosive defense," Joseph says.

    Only if they're not torn apart. Even a shimmy-happy MVP cannot do it all by his lonesome.

    J.J. Watt spent most of the Houston Texans' season-ending win over the Jaguars dancing.

    J.J. Watt Texans dance Jags
      
    Photo by Michelle Watson/CultureMapSnap
    J.J. Watt spent most of the Houston Texans' season-ending win over the Jaguars dancing.
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