TreVeyon Henderson entered the league as one of the most exciting rookie running backs in the 2025 class, flashing exactly the explosiveness that made him a second-round pick. The problem is that his box score and his actual opportunity told two very different stories.
Rhamondre Stevenson is still in town, still trusted, and still standing directly between Henderson and a real workload. Should fantasy football managers buy the talent and draft Henderson in 2026?
Should You Draft Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson in Fantasy Football?
Let me come clean about something: I was all in on Henderson last year, arguably to a fault. Even when his price steamed up draft boards by two full rounds for no discernible reason, I stayed interested. Nothing about his talent or his circumstances had actually changed. He simply went from a five-six turn pick to a three-four turn pick.
As a general rule, when a player’s price increases due to no change in circumstances, we should, at the very least, ask questions. That player won’t become a fade 100% of the time. If you think a player is worth a fourth-round pick and his price skyrockets from Round 9 to Round 6, he’s still worth it, even if he’s not as good of a pick. But that wasn’t the case with Henderson.
To be clear, the talent has never been the issue. Henderson is a genuinely explosive player who rushed for 911 yards and 9 touchdowns on 5.1 yards per carry as a rookie. He set a Patriots record with 4 rushing touchdowns of 50-plus yards. That is not a fluky stat line. Only a handful of players in NFL history have ripped off that many long scores in a single season, let alone as a rookie.
The problem was the opportunity. Henderson spent the first half of his rookie year on the wrong side of a timeshare. The backfield did not truly crack open until both Stevenson and Terrell Jennings got hurt. A Round 2 rookie should not have needed someone named Terrell Jennings to get hurt to accomplish anything.
Nevertheless, once Henderson finally got his chance, he took it, piling up 243 total yards and 5 touchdowns across Weeks 10 and 11. Surely the genie was out of the proverbial bottle, right? Stevenson fended off the rookie as long as he could, but it’s over. It’s Henderson’s job now. Of course, that’s not what happened.
Stevenson came back. Henderson had one week as the lead back while Stevenson re-acclimated to playing football. Then, a week later, Henderson was banished into a backup role, and it stayed that way the rest of the season. That is the part fantasy managers cannot gloss over. As exciting as Henderson may be, the Patriots saw what he was capable of and still made a conscious decision to take the ball out of his hands as much as possible.
Henderson’s Redraft Fantasy Football Value
The playoffs told the whole story, and it was ugly. New England made a run all the way to the Super Bowl, and Henderson was an afterthought for all of it. Across the four biggest games of the year, his snap shares came in at 38%, 40%, 7%, and 40%, producing 4.6, 3.3, 0.5, and 7.5 fantasy points.
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Stevenson, meanwhile, was on the field for 65%, 59%, 93%, and 63% of the snaps in those same four games. His fantasy output? Try 15.8, 12.1, 7.1, and 17.3 points. One of these backs was trusted with the season on the line, and it was not the rookie.
The efficiency data backs it up across the board. Stevenson bested Henderson in yards per route run (1.45 to 1.02), in 15+ yard rush rate (6.9% to 5.6%), and in fantasy points per opportunity (1.07 to 0.93). Whatever you think of Stevenson as a real-life player, he was better than Henderson last season by essentially every measure that matters for fantasy.
Here is the bottom line. Stevenson is still on the roster. The coaching staff clearly trusts him. This exact arrangement just carried the Patriots to a Super Bowl. I do not see the argument for why 2026 suddenly flips the script.
Henderson’s ADP is RB22. I have him way down at RB26. More tellingly, I have Stevenson, whose own ADP sits at RB30, ranked ahead of Henderson. When I prefer the cheaper back in the very same backfield, that should tell you exactly how I feel about the pricier one.
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I do want to acknowledge the path to getting burned, because it is real. Henderson is explosive enough to win a week all by himself, and we already saw what he can do when Stevenson is sidelined.
Should Stevenson get hurt again, or should the fumbles that have plagued his career resurface, Henderson could smash his ADP in a hurry. That outcome is very much in play. I just am not going to bet on it at this cost.
Henderson’s Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
Dynasty is a far more interesting conversation. Henderson is only 23 years old. He carries second-round draft capital, and the explosiveness he flashed as a rookie is exactly the kind of trait that can carry him as the ancillary stuff presumably improves. We have him as our consensus dynasty RB15, and I understand the enthusiasm here far more than I do in redraft.
The key differentiator is time. Stevenson is 28. He comes with a lengthy fumbling history, and the current coaching staff had no hand in handing him his extension. Just as importantly, the guaranteed money in that contract essentially dries up after the 2026 season. Translation: the roadblock in front of Henderson is not a permanent one.
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If you already roster Henderson in dynasty, this is not a player I am rushing to sell. The talent is legitimate, and the runway may clear in a year. That said, I would stop short of aggressively buying at an RB15 price.
You are still paying up for a back who has yet to prove he can win a job outright, and betting on a situation to change is always shakier than betting on a player who already controls his own. Bet on the talent if the cost is right, just do not convince yourself the breakout is a foregone conclusion.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.