The former third round pick disappointed after his return from injury
What's next for Texans after waiving D'Onta Foreman?
Aug 4, 2019, 9:49 am
Sunday morning the Texans cut former 2017 third rounder D'Onta Foreman. Here are the options currently on the team behind Lamar Miller, some thoughts on free agents, and how Foreman ended up in this spot.
Foreman's fall
It's hard to not get exited about the selection of D'Onta Foreman back in 2017. He was the Doak Walker award winner which is awarded to the nation's top running back, he was a consensus All-American and he was from the Greater Houston area.
Foreman's torn Achilles robbed him of the last parts of 2017 and pretty much all of the 2018 season. The injury took away at least six games he could have shown his stuff and he was far from right in 2018. You could see the injury took a toll on him.
Coming into this season Foreman had changed his body. He looked more fit than he had been and claimed he felt as good as he did in high school. The new body didn't translate into results. I have speculated he was in workout shape but not football shape.
His work during camp had been lackluster to say the least. He was regularly average to below-average with the ball in his hands and his pass blocking was overall bad. Bill O'Brien made it very clear early in camp there was one running back who wasn't competing for a spot and that was Lamar Miller. D'Onta Foreman, it seems, didn't get the message.
I wouldn't be shocked to see him get another chance somewhere else. He just wasn't a fit for this Texans team it seems.
Never should have been in this position
Maybe this is something that can be shoved off on Brian Gaine, but the Texans never should be in the situation they currently reside. Lamar Miller is the lone back with real NFL rushing experience. The rest of the roster is either a special teams expert, fringe roster player who has been around a few years, or an undrafted rookie.
There have been so many worthwhile running backs, both expensive and a bargain, that could have helped the Texans. Tevin Coleman signed for peanuts. C.J. Anderson showcased there was plenty left in the tank last year. T.J. Yeldon would have been a decent compliment. And just recently Theo Riddick was a free agent but signed up with a crowded Denver room.
There could have been some addressing of the position via the draft too but instead added another young tight end to the roster in the third round over the likes of Alabama's Damien Harris and Oklahoma State's Justice Hill.
Current free agents
Jay Ajayi is coming back off an ACL injury but that was in week five, a few weeks before Will Fuller who is good to go now. I like the idea of Ajayi. He has played in multiple systems and is still young. If there was a free agent addition he would be my choice.
Jacquizz Rodgers with his connection to the area (Lamar Consolidated) would have been nice but he was signed by the Saints around the same moment Foreman was released. LeGarrette Blount is a free agent and in theory is a nice power option until you realize he rushed for 2.7 yards per carry last year. Stevan Ridley was a rookie when Bill O'Brien was the offensive coordinator in New England, but he was bad last year for the Steelers.
Free agency, currently, is thin. The Texans might be looking to add a player to the roster if they get cut in the coming weeks or even during roster cut down.
Taiwan Jones
A special teams ace who has had 44 carries in his eight-year NFL career to this point. Going into his ninth year he could very-well make the roster but if he does as the backup consider it a clear failure by the front office. I can understand his usefulness as a depth player but he shouldn't end up the backup.
Karan Higdon
The former Wolverines ball carrier was slow to start his offseason after a surgery earlier this year. He has made up for it in the short amount of time in camp though. He has some juice to him and is a willing special teams player. There have been a few moments where he's showcased athleticism and sideways movement.
He had the 18th most yards per game in college football last year and had the 29th most rushing yards. I have to wonder how much being behind will affect his ability. He's catching up to where other undrafted players are though.
Damarea Crockett
Crockett was fantastic in 2016 for the Missouri Tiger but never replicated that season's success. He has had an up and down camp to this point with success on the goal line, he tattooed a couple of defenders carrying them into the end zone, and some failures, he's been stuffed after a bad cut. If I had to have a depth chart tomorrow and put someone behind Miller I likely would put Crockett there but I wouldn't feel great about it.
Josh Ferguson
He has played sparingly in the NFL since making his debut for the Colts in 2016. He garnered high praise from O'Brien in the spring work but hasn't stood out in camp. I'm not sure how much of a factor he can be in this situation.
Buddy Howell
The second-year back was a special teams only player last year for the Texans. He was one of the running backs not mentioned by name, along with Foreman, from the other day when Bill O'Brien was mentioning player's ability to be used on special teams. I do not see any way he can make this team.
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Jan 10, 2025, 2:32 pm
Everyone raved about the leadership of second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud this week as the Houston Texans prepared for their wild-card playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Everyone, that is, except the man himself.
“I don’t think I’m a great (leader),” Stroud said sheepishly. “I don’t know. That’s probably a bad thing to say about yourself, but I don’t think I’m all that when it comes to leading. I just try to be myself.”
But the 23-year-old Stroud simply being himself is exactly what makes him the undisputed leader of this team.
“C.J. is authentic, he’s real,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “It’s not only here, it’s in the locker room around the guys and that’s what leadership is to me. As you evolve as a leader, you just be authentic to yourself. You don’t have to make up anything or make up a speech or make up something to say to guys. C.J. is being C.J.”
Sixth-year offensive lineman Tytus Howard said he knew early on that Stroud would be special.
“He has that aura about him that when he speaks, everybody listens,” he said.
Stroud has helped the Texans win the AFC South and reach the playoffs for a second straight season after they had combined for just 11 wins in the three years before he was drafted second overall.
He was named AP Offensive Rookie of the Year last season, when Houston beat the Browns in the first round before falling to the Ravens in the divisional round.
His stats haven’t been as good as they were in his fabulous rookie season when he threw just five interceptions. But he has put together another strong season in Year 2 despite missing top receiver Nico Collins for five games early and losing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell to season-ending injuries in the second half of the season. He also started every game despite being sacked a whopping 52 times.
“He’s taken some crazy shots,” Howard said. “But even if he’s getting sacked and stuff like that, he just never lets that get to him. He just continues to fight through it, and it basically uplifts the entire offense.”
He also finds ways to encourage the team off the field and works to build chemistry through team get-togethers. He often invites the guys over to his house for dinner or to watch games. Recently, he rented out a movie theater for a private screening of “Gladiator II.”
“He’s like, ‘I want the guys to come in and bond together because this thing builds off the field and on the field,’” Howard said. “So, we need to be closer.”
Another thing that makes Stroud an effective leader is that his teammates know that he truly cares about them as people and not just players. That was evident in the loss to the Chiefs when Dell was seriously injured. Stroud openly wept as Dell was tended to on the field and remained distraught after he was carted off.
“It was good for people to see me in that light and knowing that there is still a human factor to me,” he said. "And I think that was good for people to see that we’re just normal people at the end of the day.”
Stroud said some of the leaders who molded him were his father, his coaches in high school and college, and more recently Ryans.
His coach said Stroud has been able to lead the team effectively early in his career because he knows there are others he can lean on if he needs help.
“Understanding that it’s not all on him as a leader, it’s all of our guys just buying in, doing what they have to do,” Ryans said. “But also, C.J. understanding a lot of guys are looking up to him on the team and he takes that role seriously. But it’s not a heavy weight for him because we have other leaders, as well, around him.”
Stroud considers himself stubborn and though some consider that a bad quality, he thinks it’s helped him be a better leader. He's had the trait as long as he can remember.
“That kind of carried into the sport,” he said. “Even as a kid, my mom used to always say how stubborn I was and just having a standard is how I hear it. It’s stubborn (but) I just have a standard on how I like things to be done and how I hold myself is a standard.”
And, to be clear, he doesn’t consider himself a bad leader, but he did enjoy hearing that others on the team consider him a great one.
“I just don’t look at myself in that light of just I’m all-world at that,” he said. “But I try my best to lead by example and it’s cool because I don’t ask guys and to hear what they have to say about that is kind of cool.”
Though he doesn’t consider himself a great leader, Stroud does have strong feelings about what constitutes one. And he’s hoping that he’ll be able to do that for his team Saturday to help the Texans to a victory, which would make him the sixth quarterback in NFL history to start and win a playoff game in both of his first two seasons.
“That would be making everybody around you better,” he said of great leaders. “Kind of like a point guard on the offense, the quarterback on the football team, the pitcher on a baseball team — just making everybody around you better.”