Arian Foster a potential holdout?

[Joshua]

Originally Posted by barrett

That is what those guys got as free agents. Foster is not. NFL players know that Free Agency is their payday. Teams know that you have to overpay in free agency. Foster will want to make more money and everything else is speculation right now.

All your points are undoubtedly true. However, the reason I listed these deals is that they represent what has been paid lately to sign RBs to a long term deals and Foster's agent will almost certainly rely on them to come up with an asking price, free agent or not (and I don't think Steven Jackson's deal was a free agent deal) . I don't think Foster's agent is going to look at these contracts and then see which ones were given to free agents versus otherwise. He's going to see what the market price is, period, then formulate an asking price from this.

And as for it being speculation, of course it is, but hey, it's January and the Texans are home as usual. What else are we going to talk about?

Anyway, my whole point is I doubt the Texans will be willing to give Foster a huge payday. Sounds like most here agree with me as y'all keep telling me the Texans have all the leverage and they learned from Davis, Green and Slaton. However, I don't think Foster or his agent will see it this way and will want big bucks. While he may not be able to do much about it (accept holdout a la Vincent Jackson), I would prefer that one of our few special players not be disgruntled and angry at Texans management going into what is essentially only his second year in the league. Seems like most don't share my concern, but what can I say, I'm quickly becoming the most pessimistic guy on this board (take that, Chuck!).

[cadams]

i think those of you who are dismissing the possibility of a holdout are crazy. maybe it doesn't happen, but if he wants more than what the texans are going to offer (and if the difference it big) i think a holdout is definitely on the horizon. my only hope is that since kubiak and smith pretty much have to win this season (if you believe mcnair), then maybe they will make an offer to foster that he will be fine with. if he threatens to holdout, or actually does, i would bet there will be a number of teams trying to work a trade for him that will happily pay him a boatload.

[NBT]

Joshua, I take no offense as long as it is open minded debate. The fact that Foster is not in a position to bargain very much, I thought the 1.5-3M figure was doable. However, as someone said, the damned agents keep sticking their finger in the pie hoping to come up with a big splash. I also heard somewhere that since AF was not a "drafted player", that his free agency would automatically escalate to 3 years instead of 5. All he has to do in that situation is be patient for another year, and then hit the big jackpot. Assuming he keeps up his gaudy numbers.

[Fonz the Boss]

Would the Texans really think they would have leverage? Im not so sure about that. Derrick Ward would have to find the youth fountain to carry the load for a full season. Backup Ben Tate has not even played a single regular season down. And then there's Steve Slaton... umm, yea that's a whole lotta leverage huh.