SEPTEMBER 27: Vrabel said on Friday (via Doug Kyed of the Boston Herald) that Stevenson is not “on some sort of discipline,” suggesting that he may maintain his normal workload after all. Vrabel indicated that Stevenson may not get the official start, but he is not being benched outright, either.
SEPTEMBER 25: Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson led his position with seven fumbles last year, and his ball security issues seem to have continued into 2025.
The five-year veteran fumbled twice in Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, which is likely to reduce his workload in the short-term, per ESPN’s Dan Graziano. That will “help the coaches make a point to the rest of the team about accountability,” an especially important precedent for Mike Vrabel to establish after his predecessor, Jerod Mayo, struggled to maintain the support of his players.
A downgrade for Stevenson would result in more action for Antonio Gibson and rookie TreVeyon Henderson. Gibson has played just 34 snaps through three games and is trending towards career-low production, primarily due to Henderson taking over his RB2 role. However, the second-round pick has received fewer opportunities than expected to start the year with just 19 rushing attempts, though his 11 receptions lead the running back room.
Henderson clearly profiles as the future of New England’s backfield and only fumbled twice across four years and 590 carries in college, so it would not be surprising to see him take on a much bigger role in Week 4. However, Graziano cautions that changes to the running back snap distribution may not be permanent.
“The goal with Stevenson is to get him past this problem so he can be a big contributor on offense — not to cast him aside as punishment,” Graziano writes.
The Patriots’ willingness to be patient with Stevenson may stem from their financial commitment to the 27-year old. He signed a four-year, $36MM extension before the 2024 season and still has $3.25MM in guaranteed salary in 2026, per OverTheCap, so the team is likely hoping to keep him for at least another year. However, Stevenson’s fumbling issues seem to be chronic, and continuing to turn the ball over will not allow him to last long under Vrabel.
He’ll be out there playing the same amount of snaps.
They didn’t take a running back 38th overall to *not* have him overtake the running back with a fumble problem.
Inversely, they didn’t resign a running back at a premium rate to have him sit on the bench while a rookie takes all the snaps.
I didn’t say Henderson would take all the snaps, I said he would overtake Stevenson. The Stevenson contract isn’t that big for the lesser half of a platoon with a guy on a rookie contract. Besides, that contract was signed before Vrabel took over and before Stevenson doubled his career fumble total last year.
Ironically he fumbled his opportunity
Man, he got paid. He’d better get it together real soon.
From looking at the stats over the last three years i predict that he won’t be with this team by the trade deadline.
Next stop is New Orleans where even Velus Jones (4 career fumbles on 32 touches) can find a roster spot.
Treyveon’s upside is twice that of Stevenson’s.
A number of teams have lost their primary RB’s already so there should be a trade market for him. They may have to pick up some of the cash, but it’s time to ship him out.
Its roster mismanagement to pay a RB and then draft a second round guy.
Its hard to justify one move in combination with the other.
Why? It is clear in the modern NFL that you need more than one quality player at any given position. Henderson can make them better, he can also make them better in tandem with Stevenson.
If you want to use all of your resources on RBs – fine with me. I hope you draft another one this year.
I support your decision to load up on the most replaceable position.
It isn’t about using up all your resources. It is about finding a player that you feel will fit your culture and contribute to winning. So many of these picks are lottery tickets, if you feel you want a player, might as well buy the scratch off you want before someone else does.
No – its about allocating resources – which are finite.
The same reason why half the NFL fans wouldn’t advocate for drafting a RB in rd 1.
A kicker misses a FG and he’s told to pack his bags and get out of town but some of these RBs have terrible ball security and don’t even get benched. It’s rather ridiculous because turnovers will probably cost you more games than a missed FG.
Failure rate is much higher for kickers because they get on the field far less.
Obviously you could never roster a RB that fumbles 15% of his touches (15% FG misses usually is the limit a coach would tolerate) but the point swing resulting from a turnover is potentially more than double what would result from a missed FG.
Potentially is the key. We really don’t know what happens with a fumble, in most cases, until well after it happens. Kicks are different. You get immediate feedback from that missed kick.
It may not be “right”, but we react more viscerally when we see this guy come out two or three times a game and expect them to not miss more than one or two kicks out of a hundred. We get to see immediately that three points did not go on the board, and in some case’s it is a game losing mistake.