Dolphins Offer Arian Foster Best Chance at Resurrecting NFL Career

Back in 2010, Arian Foster led the NFL with 1,616 rushing yards for the Houston Texans. Three times in the five seasons since Foster has eclipsed 1,000 yards on the ground, including as recently as 2014.

It’s injuries that have defined the 29-year-old the past few years though. Injuries like the torn Achilles that led to Foster’s release from Houston.  Those injuries have Foster on a mission to show he can make it back and reclaim his status as one of the NFL’s top running backs.

On Monday, Foster took the next step toward that goal. And in signing with the Miami Dolphins, Foster landed in just about the best spot he could if that goal is going to become a reality.

It was Foster’s agent Mike McCartney who broke the news that the eighth-year veteran was heading to Miami on a one-year deal:

Congrats to @ArianFoster agreeing to a 1 year deal with the @MiamiDolphins

— Mike McCartney (@MikeMcCartney7) July 18, 2016

Foster was also reportedly set to work out for the Detroit Lions this week, and as happens any time a big-name veteran back hits the open market the Patriots had been rumored to be kicking the tires.

However, it isn’t hard to see why Foster pulled the trigger on joining the Dolphins without waiting to see what other offers came along. The Patriots may have given Foster a chance to win, assuming they were at all interested.

But the Dolphins give Foster a chance to play.

After watching Lamar Miller depart for (of all places) Houston in free agency, and failing in their pursuits of C.J. Anderson and Chris Johnson, the prevailing wisdom was that the Dolphins would make running back a priority in the 2016 draft. The team did indeed draft a back on Day 2. But third-round pick Kenyan Drake is a pass-catching scat-back. A complement. Not a bell-cow.

That left Jay Ajayi as the lead back on a wafer-thin depth chart for the Dolphins. The same Jay Ajayi who dropped to the fifth-round in 2015 due to concerns about his knee. The same Jay Ajayi who averaged 3.8 yards a carry as a rookie.

Granted, as ESPN.com’s James Walker wrote recently, Ajayi isn’t hurting for confidence:

Everyone else has opinions on what I can do and if I’m worthy enough, and I know how good I am. I know how great I can be. That’s my mentality coming in, day in and day out — to work, so that when I step out on that field, …

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