Foster tweets MRI, should we care?

By Jeff

Disclaimer: I have drafted Arian Foster first overall in two fantasy leagues, so I obviously want to see him play.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about Foster tweeting the actual MRI image of his hamstring to Twitter.

There are many out there who think this was a very stupid thing to do. Herm Edwards and Skip Bayliss are two people I've heard recently ripping Foster for posting the MRI. Why? Because they think it gives other teams information about Foster that they will use to their advantage.

This is why hockey teams never diclose specific injuries and just tell the world that their players have upper or lower body injuries. They don't want other teams to target their players' injured body parts.

But this is a different case. Everyone who pays attention to the NFL or fantasy football knew that Arian Foster reaggravated a hamstring injury in Week 3 of the preseason. It was discussed on "Sportscenter", "First Take", "Mike & Mike", "Inside the NFL", and probably the every other ESPN show.

Clearly, it was made very clear by multiple people that Foster hurt his hamstring. If an opposing NFL didn't know, then they are probably the Browns, Bengals, Bills or Raiders, as it's obvious these teams don't care about football or winning games anymore. Developing strategies to win games would be detrimental to their goal of making a ton of money with losing teams.

So was there really anything in that MRI that would tell teams anything they didn't already know. Maybe now they have a better idea of the severity, but are there multiple ways to assault a hamstring?

As I'm writing this I guess it could be an issue as the organization can list Foster as questionable each week, and their opponents will have to plan for him, even if he won't play. Now they can expect him not to play and that ploy doesn't work.

But that's not what Edwards and Bayliss were saying! They were focusing on how other players now knew to target Foster's hamstring, which they should have already known.

Now, there is the whole debate as to the severiy of the injury. ESPN's medical correspondent said it was a tear that would keep Foster out 3-4 weeks. Foster replied on Twitter saying he wouldn't post a serious injury. I tend to believe the doctor before the athlete here. But then again, if the doctor's name isn't Freddie Fu, I have no idea if he has solid credentials.

I Googled Dr. Michael Kaplan of ESPN and he received some kind of Connecticut Top Docs award from 2003-2006 in CT Magazine. I don't know what that means. He also got a best video award for an ACL reconstruction. That doesn't tell me enough. Did it have superb editing? Did it have fun special effects? Best video tells me nothing. It does make me want to bust in on an OR with a video camera and try to win a best video for liver transplant award, but I don't have the clearance. Mike, help me out here.

With that being said, I'd still trust the doctor as opposed to Foster when it comes to medicine knowledge.

ZZ Top - Legs