Houston Texans: D’Onta Foreman ‘in the best shape of his life’

It has been a long road for Houston Texans running back D’Onta Foreman but he’s reportedly in the best shape of his life. What’s going on? Let’s look.

Houston Texans fans — this is relatively the dead point of the season when we’re right in-between the mandatory offseason workouts and training camp.  This is typically when staffers and players alike take their vacations because once camp rolls around, it will be touch and go for the remainder of the year.

Training camp will open up Thursday, July 25 and the public will be able to attend as early as the following week which would be Thursday, Aug. 1.

That’s just a few weeks from now and there are many thoughts that cross my mind as to what we’ll expect to see as camp rolls around.

There are two major position battles — the most important one to watch would be of the tight ends as the Houston Texans have five signed to contracts so far.  Those guys are — Jordan Akins, Jordan Thomas, Kahale Warring, Jerell Adams and Darren Fells.  There’s no way they will keep them all but it’s possible that they may carry four going into the season.

The other position would be offensive line — the Houston Texans made a significant investment in draft capital to bring in Tytus Howard and Max Scharping into the fold as their first picks of this year’s draft and it’s expected that they’ll contribute heavily to that unit.

Also, Seantrel Henderson will be back in the fold after suffering an ankle injury in the first game of last season, ruling him out for 2018.  With veterans Nick Martin, Zach Fulton and Senio Kelemete coupled with young guns Julie’n Davenport and Martinas Rankin, it’ll be interesting to see how the Houston Texans can mix this talent.

Lest we not forget that the Houston Texans also signed Matt Kalil in free agency so it will be a tough decision for Bill O’Brien and Mike Devlin to make as far as the best five to take the field come Week 1 of this season.

The best combination of these five guys will take the field and we’ll have to see how that pans out.

But one of the biggest stories of training camp this offseason will be the comeback of running back D’Onta Foreman.

He suffered a devastating Achilles’ injury toward the midpoint of the 2017 season after a spectacular, 34-yard touchdown run in Week 11 against the Arizona Cardinals only to tumble ferociously in the end zone, grimacing in pain.  Unfortunately, that was the accentuation to a promising season that was cut short in just one moment.

It has been a tremendous battle for Foreman as last season was a slow-go for him, not being activated until Week 16 against the Philadelphia Eagles.  He scored a touchdown but had negative yardage for the game.

But the Houston Chronicle’s Aaron Wilson reports that Foreman is “in the best shape of his life” and it appears to me that Foreman wants to prove the naysayers wrong.

He has shed his weight down to 230 pounds and running backs coach Danny Barrett says that “he’s light-years ahead” of where he was at this point in 2018.

This is certainly good news to hear as it’s extremely difficult for players to come back from such an

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injury. Future Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson is genetic marvel and not every player should be compared to him in terms of quick and miraculous recovery he had from such an injury a few seasons ago.

O’Brien’s rates Foreman’s progress as “good” but that he has to remain consistent with not only his preparation but his conditioning.

Wilson also indicates that those apparently were concerns going into the 2018 season, despite being injured.

It’s apparent that Foreman has turned the page and is ready for a larger role in the offense as Lamar Miller‘s counterpart.

Will he take the mantle of power at the RB position after Miller’s contract expires after this season?

We’ll have to keep an eye out but he sure as hell is going to get the opportunity to prove to the coaching staff that he’s worthy of such a notion.

Good luck D’Onta and go Houston Texans!