Matt Thomas had a renowned football doc on the air earlier and he said from what he can piecemeal together - particularly the surgeon arian is seeing - he doesn't think it's as serious as many are reporting. he said if it was a straight orthopedic procedure where the muscle and/or tendon ripped from the bone that he wouldn't be visiting this surgeon in philly who specializes in muscle hernias (which is significantly less severe) since Dr. Lowe of the Texans is one of the best orthopedic surgeons around. also said if the reports were true that he came up lame on a simple cut it would be very shocking to see a significant tear. he said if it is just a hernia 4-6 weeks is a very common timetable for full recovery although in arian's case they may take it a little slower so 6-8 would be more likely. at the very least it gave hope.
That's a bit odd if they are going to put him on the IR designated to return because that would mean he'd be out till November 16th, that's a little over 14 weeks after surgery.
It's not odd when you consider it's an almost-30 year old, injury prone running back. If they bring him back at the 6- week mark, I can already hear the groans from the crowd at NRG Stadium when Arian comes up lame on a run. Giving him the full 8 weeks of rest and recovery until the bye week just makes sense.
Aaron Wilson article in the Chronicle (link) Bolded emphasis, mine, but this is from a doctor who isn't treating Arian.
Yeah but we're not talking about 6 or 8 weeks, we're talking about 14 weeks, if he really could be ready at 8 weeks, why wait an additional 6 weeks? IMO it would be odd.
If the Texans win at least 8 games without Foster or a QB Watt will win the MVP. It would be a smart bet after the injury.
If there's a good chance he'll be back 8 weeks from now he won't be placed on IR designated to return - they have until the end of the month to decide and I'm sure we'll have an accurate timetable by then. I think it was just media speculation that they would go that route because everyone thought this was extremely serious, which we now know it may not be.
The good thing is they have until Sept. 6th to make that decision so if he looks like he might be progressing well maybe they don't pull the trigger on IR/return.
Agreed, and I think if his prognosis is only 8 weeks, we'll see him not go on IR, but I'm expecting much worse.
I don't think you can move someone from PUP to IR Designated to return. So once he's off the PuP list, then he has to be activated and takes up a roster spot. Putting him on IR Designated to return gives the team that extra roster for a couple of extra weeks plus any additional time they deem he needs to get in game shape. With IR return you are given 2 extra weeks after the 8 week window to activate him.
Like the Astros finally did with Crane, the Texans really should muzzle their owner. Did he really mean we just like to roll the dice and never have a contingency plan? No he didn't but context never really comes across his quotes. Less information is better than full disclosure sometimes.
8 weeks would be October 2nd that would mean he'd realistically be ready for week 5 of the season. His prognosis would have to be 12 weeks or more for IR to be a serious consideration IMO.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Arian Foster had successful surgery this morning. There’s some hope recovery will be quicker than 3 months. But time will tell.</p>— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/629672955379888128" data-datetime="2015-08-07T15:18:25+00:00">August 7, 2015</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Dr. David Chao, an orthopedic surgeon with many years of experience as a physician within the NFL, joined SportsRadio 610 yesterday to give his anecdotal medical opinion on Arian Foster’s groin injury, as well as why he thinks the recovery may be short enough to not warrant an injured reserve designation. I would encourage you, the fans, to stay optimistic. Obviously this is an issue that he needs surgery and that’s not something that people should look upon lightly. However, I don’t know that it’s the doom and gloom. I’m very hopeful that, based on my experience and not based on an exam of Arian or looking at an MRI because obviously if I had done that I wouldn’t be able to comment based on HIPAA laws and what have you, but based on reading the tea leaves from insider knowledge and my years of experience in the NFL, I’m hopeful that this is not a true orthopedic groin muscle tendon detachment where the group of adductor muscles are pulled off the bone and it requires surgery. My evidence for that is that it would be very unusual in that case for that [injury] based off of one cut without something more traumatic, number one. Number two is that as you all know that the Texans have an excellent orthopedic surgeon in Dr. Lowe on their medical staff. There is no reason for Arian to go to Philadelphia to have this procedure done, and the fact that he is going to Philadelphia to see a general surgeon leads me to believe that this is a sports hernia, core-muscle injury type of thing as opposed to if the entire mass of the groin muscle was pulled down. If the entire mass of the groin muscle were pulled down, that’s a three plus month recovery and a tough one to the point where maybe even the season would be in potential jeopardy. But with core muscle repair surgery or this sports hernia surgery, that recovery could be as quick as 4-6 weeks. If we look at Jadeveon Clowney from last year, I believe that it was before the season in mid-June, that he had sports hernia surgery in Philadelphia and he returned for the first training camp process five weeks later. Although I don’t know that he was a hundred percent at five weeks, he still passed his physical and participated, so that’s where I hope some of the optimism is coming from. And if that’s the case then there is a chance that the Texans may not even need to use an injured reserve/designated to return tag for Arian. So we can keep our fingers crossed, however you really need your groin as a running back to run, cut and burst. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Texans [keep him out for] 4-6 weeks to give him an extra couple of weeks so that he doesn’t have chronic problems all season. Hopefully it’s the better side of the news for the surgery. http://houston.cbslocal.com/2015/08/06/should-texans-be-optimistic-in-getting-back-arian-foster-by-week-nine/
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rick Smith says the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Texans?src=hash">#Texans</a> didn't immediately add RB because they think they're OK w/who they have. Doesn't rule it out for later.</p>— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) <a href="https://twitter.com/taniaganguli/status/629675261689262080">August 7, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
that's the dr matt thomas had on yesterday... said the exact same thing verbatim. it may also shed some light as to why the texans balked at pierre thomas - why give him guaranteed money if you think arian can be back in 6-8 weeks? if they think blue is a capable backup so be it.