It’s been one year since Redskins linebacker Reuben Foster suffered a devastating knee injury in his first practice at OTAs. Foster tore his ACL, LCL and MCL in his left knee.
The injury was a huge let down for him and the franchise that believed in him when another had given up on him.
Foster was putting his checkered past that has limited him to 16 games through three season. That included domestic violence-related charges being dropped stemming from a November 2018 incident with an ex-girlfriend at a Tampa hotel. That incident led him to the Redskins after being waived by the San Francisco 49ers as a result.
After spending the remainder of the 2018 season on the Commissioner Exempt List, Foster had returned to the practice field with high expectations and a clear path to the starting Mike linebacker position. Unfortunately all expectations were subdued as he crumbled to the ground on the third play of practice and was ultimately carted off the field.
The injury forced him onto season-ending injured reserve.
A year later, Foster’s future remains uncertain.
In January, his agent, Malki Kawa, revealed to NFL Network, Foster had suffered nerve damage in the injured left foot. The severity of his injury led to him losing feeling in his foot for several months. The Redskins’ medical team had geared for the possibility.
He started regaining feeling in his foot during a trip in Columbia.
“He’s got feeling in his toes, the underside of his foot, the side of his foot,” Kawa told the network. “The nerve is starting to fire again.”
There has not been much of any update to the health of Foster since other than a brief from first-year Redskins head coach Ron Rivera.
“He’s done a great job when I was around, when I was able to see him,” Rivera said in April, per Redskins.com. “It looked good. It looked like he was working his way back. And again, the one thing that we’re doing right now is we’re not counting on anybody yet because we haven’t had a chance to watch them. We don’t know, and that’s the hard part about right now: You just don’t know.”
The Redskins have seemingly moved ahead addressing the linebacker group throughout the off-season.
They re-signed Jon Bostic, who they signed last year after Foster’s was placed on IR. They also signed veteran Thomas Davis, who spent nine seasons with Rivera in Carolina. Additionally, the Redskins signed Kevin Pierre-Loius with Cole Holcomb, Josh Harvey-Clemons and Shaun Dion Hamilton already on the roster.
Then in April, the Redskins declined the fifth-year option on Foster’s rookie deal. It was not a surprising move. Foster has received roughly $1.4 million in base pay from the Redskins, according to Spotrac without playing one down for the team. He is set to make close to $1.7 million on the final year of his deal, which is not guaranteed.
Entering a non-guaranteed, final year of a deal with a lingering injury is complicated. It becomes even more complicated with a new head coach, coaching staff and front office. Thus, Foster’s status is unclear and has a cluster of variables.
Before Foster’s injury he displayed a sideline-to-sideline speed and ability to get after a ball carrier, that the Redskins hadn’t seen in quite some time. Yet, he hasn’t been able to display it in a burgundy and gold uniform. With no recent updates, his spot on the roster is unclear. And the coronavirus pandemic has made his situation more cloudy, given team facilities had been closed and team medical staffs have been unavailable.
Hopefully, the picture on Foster will become clear if/when teams are allowed to convene in their facilities and the league resumes operations towards having a season.
