"Coming through!" a loud voice shouts out, causing a sea of reporters to part in an otherwise quiet Houston Texans locker room. It is Matt Schaub rolling through the room on one of those electric carts that disabled people — or sometimes, just fat people — use to get around a Walmart.

"I'll just clear them out with the boot," Schaub jokes, his crushed right foot encased in a giant boot cast propped up on that cart.

As Texans coach Gary Kubiak reminds the media later, the player who could most easily calm a 10-4 team that will fly to Indianapolis with plenty of doubts as baggage is not coming back. Houston must rely on rookie quarterback T.J. Yates rediscovering his mojo — or the AFC South champs will be in truly terrifying territory. Having to turn to a guy who spent most of the season on a farm.

And we're not talking about Brett Favre.

No, quarterback is not going to be a position that saves the Texans' Super hopes this season. No matter if it's Yates, Jake Delhomme or Jeff Garcia, who wasn't even active for Sunday's reality delivering 28-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers..

"Well, he's not coming back," Kubiak says when asked if Houston's penchant for starting fast on offense this season is dropping off because of Schaub's absence.

He's not coming back — and the Texans must turn to another star, really the only superstar the team has on offense in this Andre Johnson injury year. This needs to become Arian Foster's team — his offense to carry — no matter if he fumbles early. Kubiak must get over any ball security worries and just feed Foster the damn ball.

If Barry Sanders coughed up the football on the second, third and fourth times he touched it in a game back in the day, the Detroit Lions would have still kept handing him the rock. Ditto for Emmitt Smith and the Cowboys, Adrian Peterson and the Vikings, and Matt Forte and the Bears. If you have one of the few game changers in the league at tailback, you're not hurting him by punishing him for a fumble.

You're hurting the team.

And that's exactly what Kubiak seems to do after Foster fumbles on the second offensive play against the Panthers. The Texans run 10 plays before Foster touches the football again and he only finishes with five carries in the first half (only three of those after the fumble). That's two less carries than a hardly lighting-it-up Ben Tate (26 yards on seven carries) gets in the first 30 minutes.

When Foster is allowed to take on the workload in the second half, he gains 79 yards on 11 carries, catches two more passes for 47 yards, averages 9.7 yards per touch. Score of the second half with Foster playing superstar? Texans 13, Panthers 7. Score from the first half when Foster is made invisible? Panthers 21-0.

"I don't know if we got away from it early or what it was," tight end Owen Daniels says. "But you're right, we ran the ball a lot better in the second half. We ran the ball like we have to run it to win."

One could argue that Foster took himself out of the game with the fumble. To his credit, that's more the tack Foster himself is taking.

"We didn't come out with a lot of energy and I take a lot of the blame for that," Foster says. "Turning the ball over so early like that, it kind of deflates the whole energy."

Daniels credits the coaching staff with ripping into the Texans offense at halftime and demanding better run production.

"The coaches shouldn't have to yell at us to get us to do our jobs," Daniels says. "We all know how important the running game is."

It figures to be the difference between a quick one-and-done in the playoffs for the Texans and the chance at an extended run.

Lean On Him

Part of going away from Foster on the Texans' second offensive series can be linked to the team's plan to get Tate involved in games. Tate typically gets more carries on the second series — but 10 straight offensive plays over two series with no Foster touches is unusual and unforgivable if he's as healthy as everyone says he is.

From that fumble at 14:26 of the first quarter until Foster took a carry off right tackle with 3:29 left in the quarter, No. 23 is absent from the gameplan. Eleven minutes of game time without the most explosive player on the field touching the football . . . and the Texans are wondering why putting up points became such a torturous proposition?

Tate's been near great as a straight-ahead complement to Foster's darting and dashing style this season. But January is beckoning and like a basketball coach who shortens his rotation for the playoffs, it may be time for Kubiak to start leaning on his No. 1 runner.

Get Arian 30 touches against Indianapolis and Tennessee to close the regular season and see what happens. Put the ball in the best player on the field's hands again and again and see if the entire roster doesn't suddenly discover some playoff confidence.

Even Tate — who didn't get a carry in the second half against Carolina and figures to lose the most from a renewed Foster focus — does not think that his running partner is at fault for the fumble.

"He was holding the ball pretty well," Tate says. "He had two hands on the ball, he had good ball security. The guy came and knocked it out. It was a good play on their part. It happens."

The problem only compounds when the fumble does not just set up a quick 7-0 Carolina lead, when it makes Foster disappear for most of the first half.

Kubiak cannot run away from using the one star he has left — no matter how annoyed he is by the Texans' turnover troubles. He did Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott a favor Sunday.

Do you think Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy is going to hesitate to trust Aaron Rodgers now because the quarterback struggled and completed less than half his passes in that loss to Kansas City? That's the level of confidence Kubiak needs to show in Foster if the Texans are going to have a fighting playoff chance.

The Vow

For his part, Foster is vowing that he's done putting the ball on the ground this season.

"I think that's three (official fumbles) for the year and I think I had three last year, so I think it stops here," he says. "I'm not going to let my team down no more."

The Texans are going to have to pay Arian Foster like a superstar after this season. Why not find out if he can carry a team now?

There's really no other option. The calming quarterback is motoring through the locker room on a electric scooter. The rookie third stringer turned starter is going to have games where he throws interceptions into triple coverage, games where he comes off the field to a rightfully screaming Kubiak, games where he — as Kubiak puts it more nicely in the postgame — plays "like a young player."

Houston's defense is still more than good enough. Even in a game that Cam Newton decides, the Panthers ultra-talented rookie quarterback only puts up 204 total yards (149 passing) against these Bulls On Parade. It's the Texans offense, Kubiak's baby, that needs a hero.

That guy's available and ready. Just give him the football.