He still gets forgotten sometimes by his own teammates, almost discounted by the very men with the best view of his amazing ascent. Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing calls Tennessee Titan Chris Johnson, "the best running back in the NFL," missing the truth that just played out in front of him.

"Do you mean the best running back in the NFL besides Arian Foster?" someone finally asks Cushing.

Cushing — the guy who'd snarl at his own grandmother on gameday — can't help but break into a grin at that, realizing his bad. "Yeah, he's pretty good too," Cushing allows.

Pretty good?

Foster left pretty good a few 200-yard-plus afternoons of total offense ago. The Texans' second-year tailback is zooming into the land of NFL MVPs and that's exactly where his name deserves to be bandied about. Foster isn't Michael Vick, even if he's produced a Vick-worthy 1,600 yards of total offense through 11 games. But he's the closet thing to Vick in the league this year, definitely the most dangerous weapon that isn't lined up at quarterback.

What other tailback gets yelled at by his coach after racking up 114 total yards in the first half?

That's exactly what happened in the middle of the Texans' 20-0 shutout of the Titans Sunday afternoon. Houston coach Gary Kubiak looked at Foster's first-half stat line of 12 carries for 51 yards and seven catches for 63 yards and decided that wasn't good enough. Because it's Foster.

Because he can run harder. Because he can do more.

"I told him at halftime, 'We expect more out of you than anybody,' " Kubiak says. The coach wasn't shy about letting Foster know that he felt like the tailback should have gotten the first down on a third-and-6 where he came up short. That he needed to run downfield more, that he left yards on the football field.

So what does Foster do?

He runs for 92 yards in the second half, squeezes the life out of a playoff-scheming Titans team carry by carry, refuses to go down time and time again. This Thursday in Philadelphia, Kubiak will probably ask Foster to drive the team bus to The Linc and maybe whip up some postgame sundaes too.

Kubiak admits that Foster was probably looking at him like he was "crazy" when he got into the tailback after a 100-yard-plus first half. But Kubiak did it anyway and Foster got even better.

This is why you have to love Gary Kubiak as a coach, regardless of his lack of success in driving a team to the playoffs. Most coaches are afraid to challenge their stars when they're doing poorly. Kubiak gets in a combustible, second-year player's face when he is doing great. If Foster was rolling his eyes inside at crazy Kubiak, he wasn't going to let it show.

"(Kubiak) expects me to make plays when there aren't any plays to be made," Foster says. "He's right."

Foster might not even realize it, but in that halftime moment, Kubiak wasn't just playing the lunatic for effect. He wasn't auditioning for UndercoverBoss in case Bob McNair decides to fire him after this season. He was also, in many ways, passing the franchise star mantle down from Andre Johnson to the man who was still largely Arian "No Name" Foster to most of the world just a few weeks ago.

On a day when a pushed and poked Johnson would finally lose his cool and fight, leaving Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan needing a cut man (Finnegan was treated in the Tennessee trainers room for cuts to the head after Johnson landed at least two solid shots), Foster did the heavy lifting for the offense. Again.

No one is about to say it out loud and risk annoying Johnson, one of the proudest, classiest athletes you'll ever encounter. But this is now, clearly, Arian Foster's offense. This was the runner not the fighter's day, rapidly becoming his season.

Kubiak gave Foster the ball 28 times against the Jets, 39 more on Sunday. Don't expect any more "underused" games like that Monday Night in Indianapolis to crop up down the stretch.

"Rest," Texans defensive end Mario Williams says simply of what Foster's emergence means to the defense. "He gives us rest we never had before."

"To have (Arian) come out and have the season he's having is huge," quarterback Matt Schaub says.

It's M-V-P big. The hurdle standing between Foster and really challenging Vick for the award (besides Vick's mega profile) is the two teams' records. MVPs rarely come from below .500 times and that's exactly what the Texans are. If Foster and the Texans could somehow outshine Vick in the Thursday night spotlight, push Houston to 6-6 and drop the Eagles to 7-5, suddenly it's a whole new playing field though.

The Texans owner clearly sees his franchise's new star when he looks at the 6-foot-1, 227-pound Foster. A beaming McNair emerges from Houston's locker room even before it's opened to the media and when he isn't joking about "awarding" the Johnson-Finnegan bout to Andre "on points," he is waxing about Foster, who's increasingly become one of the check writers' favorite topics.

And why not? You don't see a superstar come out of nowhere every day.

Foster is a quirky guy with a football troubled past, given up on at the University of Tennessee as a senior by a coach who he'd help get fired (Philip Fulmer) by his play, undrafted in the pros, in Kubiak's doghouse until late in his rookie year. Foster will probably never be the surest bet to make a meeting on time, to be the model pro's pro that Andre Johnson is.

He's big on how he looks, always careful to make sure he's GQ-worthy for any interview in a locker room that's decidedly low-key T-shirt loving (see Johnson, Williams, Cushing, etc). But Foster is also quick to praise his blocking back Vonta Leach and the Texans' underrated offensive line. You almost get the idea that Foster would be more happy if Leach got a Pro Bowl berth out of his success than he would be at challenging for MVP.

OK, not really. But Foster is smart enough to make it sound like that.

When the favorite for league MVP is a convicted dog killer that should at least count for something. Maybe, Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and his Dan Marino-challenging ways (not to mention his 23 touchdown passes, including the four he tossed against the Texans' secondary) will get any tug-of-conscience votes that don't go Vick's way. But Foster's earned his place in any conversation that discusses most valuable.

"I mean this kid has a 200-plus day of offense," Kubiak says. "He's playing some damn good football. And as he goes, we kind of go."

Kubiak fails to mention that it's Foster fourth game with more than 175 yards of total offense this season. If this isn't Marshall Faulk of his prime stuff done in a much more physical way, it's damn close.

Even if the Texans themselves, don't always realize it, that's M-V-P. Who gets yelled at a halftime with 114 yards of offense?

The best running back in football, that's who.

Editor's note: To read more about the Texans fight club and the suspension that Andre Johnson is possibly facing, get all the details here.