Pittsburgh Steelers guard Ramon Foster has never been selected to Pro Bowl during his 8 years in the league and probably never will be for obvious reasons. While Foster isn’t a high-profile NFL offensive lineman, he’s perhaps the most consistent one not only on the Steelers over the course of the last several years, but the entire NFL as well.
Foster, who played in 14 games for the Steelers during the 2016 regular season and all three playoff games, received some well-deserved recognition for his play from Pro Football Focus in their recent list of the 101 best players from the 2016 NFL season.
PFF, who has Foster ranked 36th overall on their top 101 list, had this to say about the former undrafted free agent out of Tennessee.
Pittsburgh’s offensive line had become the league’s best by the end of the season, and LG Ramon Foster was the best player on it. The former undrafted free agent was only getting better by the postseason, and was absolutely dominant against the Chiefs in the Divisional Round, allowing no pressure at all and destroying the Kansas City defensive line in the run game. Foster has graded well over the past several years, but he ended 2016 with an overall grade of 89.1, trailing only the best guard in the game, Baltimore’s Marshal Yanda.
PFF goes on to say that Foster’s best game during the 2016 season was in the Divisional Round of the playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs and that the Steelers starting left guard didn’t surrender a sack all season.
What PFF fails to mention is that Foster was the only offensive lineman to not have a holding penalty called against him this past season. Additionally, Foster committed just one penalty all season and that was a false start in Steelers Week 17 game against the Cleveland Browns.
While not the least bit flashy, Foster has long been a very consistent pass and run blocker since taking over the spot several years ago. This past season, we perhaps saw Foster pull a little more to his right than we have in previous years and he looked fine doing so. Remember that vicious pancake block against the Baltimore Ravens?
Foster, who turned 31 in January, is still under contract with the Steelers for two more seasons after signing a three year, $9.6 million contract with the team last March. Looking back at that deal nearly one full year later, it appears the Steelers got quite a bit of bang for their buck.
Foster was originally signed by the Steelers as an undrafted free agent in 2009. Since then, he has gone on to play in 116 regular season games for Pittsburgh of which he started 101 of them.
