Rhamondre Stevenson
Stevenson enters the 2026 season as the Patriots' presumptive lead back, having outplayed and out-touched TreVeyon Henderson down the stretch in 2025, and he's the current front-runner for the No. 1 role in camp while Henderson recovers from an ankle injury.
Role
With Henderson still working back from an August ankle injury, Stevenson has been getting the bulk of first-team reps with Drake Maye in camp and sat out the preseason loss to Cleveland as a veteran rest day rather than for health reasons; expect him to open the season as the early-down/primary ball-carrier with Henderson mixing in as a change-of-pace and passing-down option once healthy, with the exact carry split to be sorted out once Henderson is fully cleared.
Stevenson closed 2025 as the clear top back — outscoring Henderson per-game, posting a career-high 4.6 YPC and 9 touchdowns, and dominating the postseason carry share (58-30) and rushing yards (217-76) over Henderson, while drawing praise all through this camp as the front-runner for the job.
Several analysts treat 2025 as a one-year outlier built on an unsustainable spike in elusiveness (38.5% Elusive Rating, up from under 29% the prior two years) and expect regression plus a shrinking role once Henderson is fully healthy and reclaims passing-down/receiving work, with some projections already giving Henderson the larger carry share (about 39.5% to 35.5%) once camp settles.
Where analysts split
The core disagreement is whether the current pecking order (Stevenson ahead of Henderson) is a real, sustainable state now that Henderson is banged up, or a temporary camp/injury artifact that flips back toward Henderson-as-lead-back once he's fully healthy and second-year growth kicks in.
Research confidence: reported. Outlooks are grounded in web search over current reporting and refreshed through the season.
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