So I saw a highlight thread on Twitter that mentioned how Dalton Keene had 11 carries last year (though just minimal success at 3 yds. per carry).
Then, they showed how the Patriots have given carries to their TEs recently (Bennett had 2 in 2016, and then Hernandez had 9 in 2010-2012).
It then made me wonder how Keene's athletic profile compares to Hernandez, since they're both H-Backs. Here's what I found:
Player | Height | Weight | Arm Length | Hand Size | 40-yd dash | 10-yd split | 20-yd split | 20-yd shuttle | 3-cone | vertical | broad jump | bench press |
Keene | 6'4" | 253 lb | 32.25" | 9.75" | 4.71 | 1.62 | 2.73 | 4.19 | 7.07 | 34" | 10'5" | 21 |
Hernandez | 6'2.375" | 245 lb | 32.25" | 9.75" | 4.64 | 1.65 | 2.71 | 4.18 | 6.83 | 33" | 9'3" | 30 |
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It's almost the exact same profile. Keene is slightly taller and more explosive (broad jump), but a little less agile/quick (3-cone), and not quite as strong (bench press). I'm sure it's been mentioned by others before, but I'd be willing to bet that Belichick sees Keene as filling the same role as Hernandez (minus the psychopath part).
The assumption with drafting two TEs is that they'll return to the 2010-2012 offense, but when you go back to look at the other, non-TE offensive personnel from 2010-2012, it makes a lot more sense. You had Welker as WR1 (Edelman now) and then a big drop off to a 30+ WR2 in Deion Branch/BrandonLloyd (Sanu now). None of those teams had a quality WR3, so that's where they need Harry to step up this year.