He didn't come within nine yards of breaking the NFL's single-season rushing record, like Adrian Peterson. He doesn't break off 90-yard home run sprints, like Chris Johnson or Jamaal Charles. What Arian Foster does do is score. A lot. He led the NFL in touchdowns last season—his third straight with a dozen or more. But that's just one reason Foster is our favorite running back right now, and the rest involve him being the most unusual, most interesting rusher in the game. Let's count them all.

**1. **Because he came into the league undrafted, and made himself into a three-time Pro Bowler.

**2. ** Because he majored in philosophy at the University of Tennessee, and one of his favorite authors is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

3. Because he writes poetry when he's not running over people, and some of it's not half bad.

**4. **Because he's probably the only guy in the NFL with both Queen and Patsy Cline on his iPod. Definitely the only black guy.

5. Because he just named his second child Khyro, which is definitely unusual but also pretty bad-ass.

6. Because Foster is cool with gay marriage. "I'm an advocate of freedom," he tells GQ. "Whatever a person wants to do with his or her life is perfectly fine as long as he or she isn't harming others in the process. If two people choose to partake in a relationship, you should allow them to partake in the symbolization of it. If you're already in a serious committed relationship, marriage really is nothing more than a piece of paper." (Peterson, by contrast, told reporters this spring, "I'm not with that& but to each his own.")

**7. **Because he's one of the league's best-dressed players without ever being one of its most overdressed. His style: "low-end to high-end, Marshalls to Louis Vuitton."

8. Because he's a vegan. OK, "mostly vegan," he says, "supplemented with the occasional chicken or fish dish."

**9. **Because he spent this past offseason co-starring in Ivan Reitman's new movie set during the NFL draft, with Kevin Costner, Frank Langella, Sean Combs and Jennifer Garner.

**10. **Because we dig his philosophy on life: "Everyone should smile. Life really isn't that serious. We make it hard. The sun rises. The sun sets. We just tend to complicate the process."