New England Patriots - NESN.com
New England Patriots running backs coach Tony Dews waited half a decade to get his hands on TreVeyon Henderson.
It’s no surprise, then, that he’s thrilled to have finally started working with him.
“I was very excited about it. I tried to recruit him back in high school, years ago, when I was at West Virginia,” Dews told MassLive’s Mark Daniels. “He snubbed me, but it was good to be able to reconnect with him. Obviously, I’m very excited about him and what he might be able to do to help us going forward.”
The Patriots have started piling things onto the rookie running back’s plate fairly early, as the expectation remains that he’ll have a large role in Josh McDaniels’ offense as a complement to incumbent starter Rhamondre Stevenson.
Henderson’s transition into the new system seems to have been pretty seamless.
“First and foremost, he’s a great human being, great person, great kid,” Dews said. “Obviously, the physical attributes. He’s certainly fast, so he brings a speed element to our team that anytime you can get a guy as fast as he is, it’s beneficial for the whole offensive unit and special teams. And then he obviously caught the ball well out of the backfield. He did a really good job, I thought, in pass protection. In the time I got to spend with him, he seemed to pick up concepts fairly quickly. With all those things, you feel like you’re getting a good prospect, and we’ll have to see how it materializes from there.”
New England has always found more success with a stable of competent running backs, particularly in the system it is reintroducing.
Henderson is helping that reintroduction become a lot easier, which can only be a good thing.
