Is Stevenson-Henderson Platoon Slowing Down Patriots Run Game?

Is Mike Vrabel slowing down the New England Patriots running game?

The numbers through four games – basically a quarter of the season – are pedestrian at best for New England’s top two running backs.

Veteran Rhamondre Stevenson is averaging 40.8 yards/game. Second-year man TreVeyon Henderson is at 36.8 yards/game.

Each is averaging 3.7 yards per rush, meaning they are basically splitting carries at 11 and 10 per game.

Should one take the lead?

The fact that they are sharing the football so much, while potentially saving the physical wear-and-tear, might be causing them to lose rhythm and actually be working against the running game.

Vrabel might disagree with the premise. The coach talked about the entire offense holding things back.

“When you talk about running the football, it’s everybody. It takes all 11. Sometimes we block them all, sometimes we do not. We need to block them a little bit better at times,” he said. “There are times where we have them well blocked and we gain yards. We have to eliminate the no gains or the gains that are inefficient. So that’s not just on the guy that is running the football; that’s on everybody… It literally takes all 11.”