Sometimes, it takes a little while for coaches to fully trust their young players. Other times, it takes no time at all. In the case of New England Patriots rookie running back TreVeyon Henderson, it's been a solid half of the season now and we might finally see Mike Vrabel start to realize just how special the young back is.
On Sunday, Henderson went on to enjoy his real NFL breakout game in a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It took long enough, but Henderson also had to wait for the opportunity. And, after his 147-yard, two-touchdown performance, we might have found out just what exactly sparked such a monstrous game.
Veteran wideout Stefon Diggs talked to reporters after the game and noted his conversations with Henderson at halftime. At that point, Henderson only had a modest output in the first two quarters.
“When one guy tackles him and stuff like that — I’ve been around some great backs in my career, and I was telling him, ‘Those great backs don’t get tackled. I want to see you score.’ I was talking mad junk to him at halftime. I was just being hard on him. So him coming out there and busting two of them, it’s like, it’s good to be hard on people, I guess.”
It took some locker room smack talk to finally thrust TreVeyon Henderson into greatness
From what we know about Henderson, he is a pretty laid-back guy with a humble attitude. He's the right type of character you want in this locker room. But, it appears as though we finally found out what happens when he's pushed just a little bit more -- and by his own teammate.
Diggs' raw words of encouragement must have flipped a switch inside of Henderson. To come out of halftime and immediately rip off a 55-yard touchdown scamper was truly as if something had changed.
And then, later in the half, Henderson took it up a notch with a 69-yard house call. That second touchdown, in particular, was the most impressive of the two for one reason and one reason only: it came in crunch time.
With under two minutes to go and a 5-point lead, the Patriots needed to control the clock in order to win the game. Henderson not only took ownership of the clock, but opted to man the scoreboard himself and ice the victory.
As for the mentality behind Diggs' halftime comments, they simply fall in line with the culture Vrabel has built:
“I’m proud of him. … He’s finally scoring touchdowns, finally running away from guys. We’re kind of hard on everybody, (and) I’m definitely hard on TreVeyon, just because I see so much potential in him."