Arian Foster Joins the Dolphins
So The Dolphins and the Texans more or less ended up swapping runningbacks. Lamar Miller is now the Texans presumed workhorse and Arian Foster is on the Dolphins. The Texans won that deal. If you listened to the latest podcast (WHICH YOU SHOULD BE DOING) this comic shouldn’t be a big surprise. You heard this joke appear in my brain in real time.
I love Arian Foster as a person but as this comic might indicate I don’t have much opinion of him as a player anymore. If he even plays football anymore. Foster feels like he’s vanished from the face of football in the past year. He’s faced some injury problems and last year he tore his Achilles tendon, which is a bad injury and tough to get back from perfectly. He’s had back problems as well. He hasn’t been as hurt as I first suspected when thinking the comic up: a quick bit of research shows he actually had a good 2014. But I don’t remember it at all. I don’t know how many people do. It must have gotten no press at all because I could have sworn he was hurt the past 3 seasons.
Foster will be 30 by the time the regular season starts. With back injuries and coming back from an Achilles it’s hard to have high predictions. I hope he does well because again, I like Foster. It’s hard not to root for the guy (unless you’re a big religious person, Foster is an athiest and gets untold amounts of hate for it by internet assholes who didn’t really pick up on the whole “golden rule” thing). He was a UDFA success story and I think most people probably remember the first time we heard of him: when he came in for Steve Slaton and beat the ever living shit out of the Colts for 231 yards and 3 TDs. I still remember watching the highlights as the announcers said “who is this guy?” at the same time the rest of us did. He’s pretty much been a household name ever since. I love UDFA sucess stories.
I hope even if he does fizzle out he stays active on twitter because he’s one of the few good athlete follows. Instead of just having a PR firm twitter he actually uses the platform right and does things like troll cat owners. Never stop, Arian. I love you.
Edit: I googled “Dolphins GM” for a quick check to get the name right before making the comic and the first result google gave me was Dennis Hickey for some reason. I didn’t notice the smaller font that said “Former” underneath it because I was just looking for a name, so that’s why it’s not Chris Grier in the comic. My Bad.
“ACTION PANEL”
I’ve been watching Arian since his Tennessee days where he was obviously talented but felt like he fumbled every other run. The first 6 or 7 years of his career I was extremely happy for him but the past few have been tough to watch. I know how papaya he is and I’m hoping he can bounce back this season. By the way, not enough Baywatch references in your comics Dave. I expect 3 a comic.
I meant Talented not papaya. Swipe text is both a blessing and a sin.
I’m glad you clarified. Even UrbanDictionary wasn’t helping
How papaya he is. Beautiful. This needs to be an inside joke. Anyway yeah Foster’s biggest flaw was probably fumbling constantly.
Like I said last comic, Miami just got themselves a top 5 running back for next to nothing. Fins (for the first time since Reggie Bush and maybe even Ronnie Brown/Ricky Williams) finally have an elite run game again.
I’m diving head first into the kool-aid
That’s ok, Fins fans are used to disappointment based on aging washed up players, Mike Wallace, Suh, the later years of Marino…
Suh was not a disappointment. Start watching Dolphins games or GTFO
For the first three quarters of the season he was pretty much nonexistent.
Change your name to “Angry Dolphins Fan”
Nah, Lobo’s got a bit of infamy already established.
The Incident in Miami Beach
I always liked Foster’s unwillingness to take the Houston sports media as seriously as they took themselves. He was, of course, guilty of taking himself too seriously from time-to-time (what football player isn’t?), but it was refreshing to see him take the starch out of reporters fishing for controversial quote or a grandstanding soundbite.
I hope he does well in Miami, but I wouldn’t put a lot of money on that.
Would’ve been funny if you had some jerseys of other washed up players strung along the beach. Stevie Johnson, Josh Freeman, Aldon Smith, etc.
What happened after the Action Panel that meant Dennis Hickey needed new shorts?
Or were they Global Hypercolor™…?
Arian’s story is a pretty refreshing one. Not the usual “I was blessed by god” “god helped me get here” “god is great” story you normally hear out of players. Just hard work and dedication. Not that I mind players saying it, but it gets pretty tiresome after a while.
Dennis Hickey was fired in January. Chris Grier is the GM. Mike Tannenbaum is senior VP of being non-Jewish, Jew buddies with Stephen Ross (thanks Miko).
I hate to be that guy. Loved the comic for years though, always happy to see a Fins installment.
Google failed me. I googled Dolphins GM and Hickey is the main name that came up as the result, but then in small font it says (former), which I didn’t see at the time. Thanks a bunch, google.
So Google has the same record as the Dolphins in the last decade? Surprising. I thought with the suspension of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for the first four weeks of next season that they really had a chance.
Oh well, at least Google has some flashy celebrity co-owners . . . I mean stadium enhancements . . .I mean topical Google Doodles to distract its fans. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
http://i.imgur.com/1OWlW2v.png
The resemblance is uncanny
If you rewind 4 years, all you would have to do is change some names and change the Foster jersey to a Reggie Bush one.
Oh, and change everyone’s faces. We don’t want to indicate that all….runningbacks….look alike
It looks like Google cares as much about the Dolphins as the rest of the league does.
From your podcast, I’ve never shower beered, but I’ve morning beered. Leinenkugel Summer Shandy is a fantastic breakfast beer. Eat some eggs, a bagel perhaps and then Summer Shady to wash it down.
Please. Lamar Miller has been given every opportunity to become the workhorse back in Miami and every time he failed to do it. The Texans thought that was enough to give him several million guaranteed. Meanwhile, the Dolphins got Arian Foster, who has proven that he CAN be a workhorse for much less than that. And if he doesn’t impress, he’ll get cut. He only has 400K guaranteed. If you think the Texans won, you are insane.
You seem to be comparing the two directly on their contracts and I don’t think that’s a fair comparison to make. They are at different points in their career and the two teams are expecting different things out of them. Houston is investing in someone they feel could be the franchise RB for years. Miami is kicking the tires on a Veteran to see if there is anything of value left. Of course those contracts are going to be different. Even if Foster pans out his time is probably very limited. If Miller pans out then Houston is set for years. This is why I think Houston won. Not because Miami got the cheaper option.
I mean, Miller was a hot commodity in free agency for a reason. He’s good. Despite what you say, he’s actually never had the chance to prove he’s a good workhorse, because the Dolphins are stupid and constantly abandoned the run even though Miller was averaging 5.1 yards per carry late in 2015. Ask any Dolphins fan, the way they’d abandon Miller was baffling. Here are some articles about how dumb the Dolphins were.
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/miami-dolphins-lamar-miller-jay-ajayi-run-game-week-11-112215
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000602145/article/dolphins-have-no-idea-how-to-properly-use-lamar-miller
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/sports/football/dolphins-promise-to-run-the-ball-against-ravens/npc2P/
https://www.profootballfocus.com/new-rb-lamar-miller-a-great-fit-in-houstons-offense/
Miller got 20 touches in a game last year just twice. He had 6 games or more with less than 10 carries. You think Miller was given every chance? Nope.
Seriously? Miller got 14 million guaranteed and a cap hit of 5.5 million on the cheapest year of his contract. Foster has 1.5 million in salary with only 400k guaranteed so he could get cut in training camp if he’s washed up. If by some miracle he recaptures his previous form and hits all the incentives, he’ll still be cheaper than Miller by 2 million. That’s just the financial side of it. Miller was given every chance to be the workhorse in Miami. He never managed to do so. The Dolphins were more willing to let fucking Daniel Thomas touch the ball than let Miller get 15 carries. The Texans thought that was good enough to pay him like a top 5 back. That’s not winning, that’s paying stupid money.
This is the same team who gave the guy that got benched for 2015 Peyton Manning 72 million over 4 years
I was interning with gameday operations for the Texans at the time and since we finished up early that day I got to see most of his breakout game from field level. It was pretty sweet, but I kept thinking at the time that a guy that good doesn’t go undrafted unless there’s a red flag. I looked him up and saw no background issues, so I assumed there would be injury or stamina problems.