Stevan Ridley or Shane Vereen?
Still, someone might be able to step in and fill the role that Benjarvus Green-Ellis did, and handle not all but most of the carries. There are two obvious candidates for this, Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley.
Ridley impressed for most of last year before fumbling the ball often towards the end of the season, putting him in the doghouse. Still, Ridley seems determined to put that behind him and seize that top spot.
"Everything I could have asked for is right in front of me," Ridley said in a recent article in the Natchez Democrat. "...I'm going into this year focused with an edge I've never had."
The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe points out that Belichick likely wouldn't have let go of Green-Ellis had he not been confident in Ridley.
Still, Ridley's poor end to last year opens the door for the running back that had a poor start to the 2011 season due to injury. Shane Vereen can make an impact for the 2012 team.
Let's not forget that Vereen was the higher draft pick of the two running backs and he'll likely get every opportunity to show what he can do this training camp. Reports are that Vereen has gotten a lot of snaps in offseason camps thus far.
The concerning thing for Vereen is how he only received 15 snaps last year. He took a long time to sign his rookie contract and then injured his hamstring early on in traning camp, as a result Ridley got all of the preseason snaps and consequently the limited regular season ones that went to running backs not named Benjarvus Green-Ellis or Danny Woodhead.
The injury held Vereen out from basically all of training camp last year. We could say that that was the only reason he barely saw the field, but also we could ask why he didn't impress the coaches more in practice once he was healthy?
There are questions that both Vereen and Ridley have to answer in 2012. If you had to pick right now, which one could you see taking over as the lead back in New England?
