The Houston Texans lost a crucial piece of their offense as running back Arian Foster will miss the early parts of the 2015 season and is expected to be on short-term injured reserve as he is set to go through surgery for a groin injury.

Placing Foster on the short-term injured reserve will allow him to return to practice after Week 6 and play a game after Week 8.

According to ESPN, Foster suffered the injury in a pass play last Monday during Houston's first fully padded practice in training camp.

Dr. William C. Meyers, a well-known specialist on injuries like the ones Foster has, will be the one doing the surgery.

"He's going to miss some time, there's no doubt about that. We have no idea how much time he's going to miss," Texans head coach Bill O'Brien said about Foster.

O'Brien also said he feels bad after all the 28-year-old's hard work in training camp but added that as a football team "it's next man up, next man up."

In the past two seasons, Foster has been plagued by injuries which made him miss a total of 11 games.

Last season, he missed three games but still ranked sixth in the National Football League (NFL) with 1,246 rushing yards, ESPN reported.

Multiple reports stated that Alfred Blue will be replacing Foster as he is part of the available running backs for the Texans which include Jonathan Grimes and Chris Polk who are both entering their fourth season and rookie Kenny Hillard who was selected in the seventh round in this year's draft.

According to NFL.com, free agent options for the Texans at the position are Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Johnson, Ray Rice, and Pierre Thomas.

Thomas already worked out for Houston, but his agent later tweeted that they were unable to reach an agreement with the Texans.