As insane as it sounds to say aloud, Week Ten of the 2018 NFL season has come to its conclusion. This season has reached its second half in what seems like an instant. With another week of NFL games came more performances and storylines pertaining to former Longhorns that must be discussed.
D’Onta Foreman
The Houston Texans invested a third round pick into who they thought could be their running back of the future during the 2017 NFL Draft — former Texas Longhorn D’Onta Foreman.
Several games into the following season, it appeared that Foreman would be the player the Texans envisioned him becoming when they selected him. In 10 games, one of which he started, Foreman rushed 78 times for 327 yards and 2 touchdowns. This promising season was quickly brought to a halt when Foreman tore his achilles on a touchdown run against the Arizona Cardinals last season — an injury that has kept Foreman off the field ever since. That is until this week.
Foreman has finally returned to practice, where he is now participating in individual drills with the hope of seeing game action within the next three weeks. The surging Texans have won six straight games and the addition of Foreman can make an already great team reach even greater heights.
Connor Williams
Being selected in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys, Connor Williams was the highest draft pick taken from the University of Texas in April’s draft.
Despite his draft status, Williams has had a turbulent rookie season. It has consisted of some strong performances as a starter, some very not so strong performances and an injury. As of now, Williams is out with a knee injury, but it appears that may not be the case for much longer as he is returning to practice this week in a very limited capacity.
He will likely not return to his starting spot this week as he is still working to recover fully. However, he may be in play to receive his job back the following week, depending on how his replacement, Xavier Su’a-Filo, performs. As of late Su’a-Filo has performed better than Williams did during his stint as a starter, so nothing is guaranteed for the undersized rookie.
Adrian Phillips
In what was their sixth win in as many weeks, the Los Angeles Chargers defeated the Oakland Raiders by a score of 20-6. This crushing victory was led by the Chargers defense which suffocated the Raiders offense for all four quarters.
The unit was clicking on all cylinders, with safety-turned-nickel linebacker Adrian Phillips leading the charge. Philips ended the game with nine total tackles, which was his highest total of the season and second highest of his career. With starting linebacker Kyzir White being lost for the remainder of the season with a knee injury, the emergence of Phillips as a hybrid linebacker/safety has continued to give life to the second level of the Los Angeles defense.
