Football really is the ultimate team sport. There’s something so poetic about how often the fortunes of the largest figures in the sport are shaped by players no one knows before they are suddenly thrust into the limelight. Just ask Malcolm Butler. Nothing reminded me of this truth more than watching the end of last Sunday’s game during a picture-perfect autumn afternoon at Gillette Stadium.
The Patriots had the ball up by one score midway through the fourth quarter against the Jets in an important
AFC East contest. New England’s offense is led by a quarterback who narrowly missed winning the MVP a season ago. His top target is a three-time All-Pro with a Super Bowl title to his name. And yet, with the game on the line, Josh McDaniels turned to a cast of cast-offs to seal the win.
As the clock ticked under six minutes to go in the ballgame, McDaniels needed to make that clock keep ticking faster and faster. To make that happen, he turned to his run-game personnel package. That group included a trio of players no one wanted: wide receiver Efton Chism, tight end Cameron Latu, and running back Corey Kiner.
The Foxboro Faithful are familiar with Chism after his heroics in Buffalo a few weeks ago. No one wanted him in the 2025 NFL Draft, but that didn’t stop him from carving out a spot on the roster and earning playing time. When Mack Hollins went down with an injury, Chism was there to help fill in for his run-blocking presence despite being roughly half the size.
Latu and Kiner are less familiar to the fans. With multiple tight ends banged up coming out of camp, the Patriots claimed Latu off waivers when he didn’t make the cut in Philadelphia. He made his presence felt earlier in this game on special team with a thundering hit on a kickoff return, and he’s be out there to help the Patriots put the game away.
After the team’s camp competition for a third running back left people wanting. New England swung a future seventh-round pick to Arizona for the running back buried on the depth chart behind the guy they took third overall this spring and the veteran free agent they signed shortly before that. Like Chism, Kiner also went undrafted in 2025.
Little did they know, this group would decide the outcome.
McDaniels called Kiner’s number eight times in a row. Kiner answered by picking up three first downs and 42 yards, taking almost four minutes off the clock as it ticked down to the two-minute warning. The longest run of the drive, one that went for 12 yards, was aided by a Latu kick-out block. The second longest, an eight-yarder, got some help from Efton Chism blocking out Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Of course, the running game can’t do what it needs to do without the offensive line. Down three starters, the Pats were forced to turn over the interior of the line to two more players most fans had never heard of.
When the Patriots took the field for that game-sealing drive, it was Walter Rouse at left guard and Matt Pryor at right guard. Rouse ended up in New England one day after Kiner. He was moved from Minnesota for a day-three pick swap to help give the Patriots some depth. Meanwhile, Pryor was with the Cardinals on their practice squad until being signed by the Patriots at the start of the month and admitted after the game that he still does not know the playbook.
On the first of Kiner’s right consecutive runs, the running back follows a lead block from Rouse on a power concept to pick up 12 yards. McDaniels went back to the same concept two plays later for five more yards, with Kiner breaking it back to run behind Pryor as he squared up five-time All-Pro DeMario Davis. And when Kiner cut one back two plays after that, Rouse provided one of the key blocks to create a lane.
No one would have predicted two months ago that this cast of characters would be on the field together to help finish out an AFC East victory for the Patriots. And yet, here they are, making plays when called upon and helping the team win.
Isn’t that a little bit romantic?
