{"id":975,"date":"2013-08-22T22:46:13","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T02:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=975"},"modified":"2013-08-22T22:46:13","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T02:46:13","slug":"injury-report-arian-foster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=975","title":{"rendered":"Injury Report – Arian Foster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Buyer<\/a>

Buyer Beware:\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Mike says Foster’s bound to breakdown.<\/p><\/div>\n

A new addition to The Machine, please welcome our Chief Physical Therapist, Dr. Mike (think Stephania Bell but hotter), who signed an exclusive deal with The Machine this offseason (we pay in beer).\u00a0 Dr. Mike will periodically chime in with important, need to know injury updates and status reports.\u00a0 He\u2019ll use fancy doctor words (I love it when you say corticosteroid injection) but he\u2019ll also give you the knowledge you need to dominate your league.\u00a0 First up on Dr. Mike\u2019s exam table, Arian Foster.<\/p>\n

Everyone knows Adrian Peterson is the number one fantasy pick this year, but who is number 2?\u00a0 The general consensus thus far has been Arian Foster.\u00a0 Picking Foster #2 overall is kind of like picking up the hot (read: easy) chick in the bar a 9:00 PM.\u00a0 Yeah, there is still plenty of time to find a hotter (read: easier) girl, but taking this one is a sure thing.\u00a0 Not a bad philosophy for fantasy drafting, or for a Friday night.\u00a0 Over the past week, however, this has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Foster is still a hot chick, but now may have an STD.\u00a0 Even though he\u2019s still attractive, you could feel the burn for the rest of the season (pun intended).\u00a0 Foster is suffering from a bout of low back pain that may or may not be related to a calf muscle issue.\u00a0 Now he is also complaining of pain down his legs.\u00a0 Up until the past 48 hours everyone has insisted that he will be ready for Week 1.\u00a0 The latest news reports that he is undergoing corticosteroid injections in his lumbar spine.\u00a0 Normally this includes 3 injections at least 1 week apart.\u00a0 Even if the injections are 100% effective (which they rarely are) he will probably not play a single live snap until Week 1.<\/p>\n

\"Foster<\/a>

Foster owners will be praying that his back\/calf\/legs\/body hold up.<\/p><\/div>\n

If the reports of leg pain and calf spasms are true, then he is dealing with a nerve impingement.\u00a0 These are the same symptoms that Gronk and JPP dealt with prior to their offseason surgeries (and all of us G-Men fans saw the effects of back pain on JPP\u2019s performance last season).\u00a0 The question is what is causing this impingement?\u00a0 It could be any number of things: \u00a0extruded disk, stenosis, or significant degeneration that is causing pressure on a spinal nerve.\u00a0 None of these are good options for a guy that is about to be tackled 350+ times this season.\u00a0 In my opinion, Foster is headed for back surgery.\u00a0 The question is when?\u00a0 Can it wait until the off season? \u00a0Unclear at this point, which is why taking Foster #2 is no longer a sure thing.<\/p>\n

The machine that is a RB\u2019s body can only take so much punishment before it has to be repaired or retired.\u00a0 This is evident by the usual drop-off in production by RB\u2019s the season after they have 370 touches.\u00a0 Over the past 30 years, only freaks of nature like LaDainian Tomlinson, Eric Dickerson, and Walter Payton are immune.\u00a0 Every other back that has carried the ball more than 370 times has seen an average of 30% drop off in yards (including 4 that tore their ACL\u2019s and 6 that ended their careers.)\u00a0 This does not bode well for Arian Foster coming into this season.\u00a0 He is quickly falling down draft boards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Mike\u2019s advice:\u00a0 Proceed with caution.\u00a0 I would not touch him in the top half of the first round, but just like your 9:00 PM hookup, sometimes it turns out that STD is just an itch.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the case, congrats on dodging a bullet.\u00a0 It\u2019s certainly possible that Foster can shake off the injury bug and live up to expectations, it\u2019s just that he comes with a lot of risk.\u00a0 If you do draft him, listen to your high school health teacher and stop for condoms on the way home (read: draft Ben Tate for protection).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new addition to The Machine, please welcome our Chief Physical Therapist, Dr. Mike (think Stephania Bell but hotter), who signed an exclusive deal with The Machine this offseason (we pay in beer).\u00a0 Dr. Mike will periodically chime in with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy-football"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-fJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}