In the race for the NFL postseason, there’s no advantage quite as large as having a superstar. Guys like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley and Jonathan Taylor are capable of putting entire teams on their backs and carrying them to the promised land. These players are often established vets who have been in the league for years and been through the wars. That experience has molded them into true difference-makers.
And while every team would love to have one of the aforementioned players, the beauty of football is that it’s a team game. You’re probably never going to lose double-digit games when Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback, but to actually get to the playoffs and win a Super Bowl, you need the rest of the roster to carry its weight, too.
Rookies are thrust into the spotlight from the moment they’re drafted, but success rarely happens overnight. Becoming an impact player takes time for almost everyone, so while the hype train is tearing down the tracks at full speed over the summer, the fall usually brings a dose of reality.
The rookie slow burn is finally paying offGuys like Tyler Warren of the Colts, Bucs receiver Emeka Egbuka and Grey Zabel of the Seahawks defied the odds and helped their teams contend right out of the gate. But fans are way too quick to write slow starters off as busts, especially on teams that are winning games without much help from their prized draft picks. It’s not easy to jump right in and make an instant impact, and it’s tougher still to do so on contending teams that have to prioritize immediate returns over player development.
The season is more than halfway through, and some of those slow starters are beginning to wake up. Not only that, some of them are looking like X factors in what promises to be an exciting playoff race. Today we’ve got nine of them, interestingly enough representing five teams, who could make a difference down the stretch. Let’s start with an electric twosome who really stood out on Sunday.
TreVeyon Henderson and Kyle Williams, New England PatriotsTreVeyon Henderson looked like the biggest home run threat in football during the Patriots’ preseason. He seemed to score on a long touchdown or two every day in camp, and then the first time he ever touched the ball in a game, he brought a kickoff back 100 yards for a touchdown. Fantasy football managers scrambled to draft him, and an Offensive Rookie of the Year campaign seemed to be a sure thing.
Then the regular season began, and Henderson took a backseat to Rhamondre Stevenson and Antonio Gibson. He averaged fewer than nine touches per game through Week 7, scoring only one touchdown while failing to break a play of more than 15 yards. His depth chart burial was even more inexplicable given the fumbling issues of the guys ahead of him, but in the past three weeks, he’s broken out.
Henderson averaged 7.5 yards per carry in a Week 8 win over the Browns, then he followed that up with 87 yards from scrimmage in a tight win over the Falcons. Those performances were nothing compared to his true breakout though, which occurred on Sunday.
The Patriots won their seventh straight game this weekend, and it looks now like Henderson will be the team’s featured back going forward. He took 14 carries for 147 yards and two touchdowns, and he was so fast on his 69-yard fourth-quarter score that he had time to look to the sideline to see if head coach Mike Vrabel wanted him to score or go down.
Kyle Williams was taken in the third round of the draft, and he’s spent the season sitting behind Stefon Diggs and Kayshon Boutte. Coming into Sunday’s game, he had only two receptions, and none since Week 3. Against the Bucs though, he announced himself with a 72-yard touchdown at the end of the first quarter, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought it was Tyreek Hill racing to the end zone. Williams has insane speed, and he turned on the burners to make the Bucs secondary look like they were standing still.
Both Henderson and Williams took advantage of opportunities presented by injury. Stevenson has missed the last two games with a toe injury, while Gibson has been on IR since tearing his ACL against the Bills last month. Boutte missed this week’s game with a hamstring injury. It’s unfortunate for those guys, but with the way these rookies have stepped up in their absence, it looks like they’re only getting started.
Colston Loveland, Kyle Monangai and Luther Burden III, Chicago BearsThe Chicago Bears went all-in on offense in the 2025 draft, as Ryan Poles attempted to gift his new offensive-minded head coach Ben Johnson with as many weapons as possible. That didn’t look like a sound decision through the first couple months of the season, but the tide is turning based on recent performances.
Loveland capped off a wild 47-42 Bears win over the Bengals last week with a 58-yard touchdown in the final minute, his second of the day. On that play, he showed off all the tools that made the Bears draft him with the No. 10 pick, from his route-running and speed to his hands, strength and balance. That performance was no fluke, as he brought in all four of his targets against the Giants on Sunday to finish second on the team with 55 yards.
Monangai took full advantage of D’Andre Swift’s absence against the Bengals, exploding for 176 yards on 26 carries, while also adding three receptions for 22 yards. He looked like a complete back, showcasing straight-line speed, elusiveness and vision in the open field, and the power to finish runs. Swift returned against the Giants, but as we saw during Ben Johnson’s time in Detroit with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, he likes using two running backs. Monangai should still see a lot of touches in the final two months of the season.
If you haven’t bought your stock on Burden yet, now’s the time. Olamide Zaccheaus had a case of the drops against the Giants, and given how glowingly Caleb Williams spoke about Burden after the game, it’s clear that he’s about to take over the WR3 role. This graph certainly doesn’t hurt:
Luther Burden propaganda pic.twitter.com/4CGYQVG0Ck
— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) November 10, 2025Burden’s quickness and route-running ability have drawn comparisons to Amon-Ra St. Brown. There are a lot of mouths to feed in Chicago, but he’s making a compelling case to get his.
At 6-3 with last-second win after last-second win, the Bears may be the most unlikely playoff contender in the field. If their rookies can continue to step up though, they may just shock the world and play into January.
RJ Harvey, Denver BroncosJK Dobbins has been the bell cow of the Broncos’ backfield so far this season, but RJ Harvey is sneaking up on him. The former UCF Golden Knight scored three touchdowns on just eight touches against the Cowboys two weeks ago, and he caught all five of his targets, including a beautiful 27-yard wheel route touchdown in the fourth quarter that helped Denver tie the game against the Texans last week.
The Broncos are tied for the NFL lead with an 8-2 record, but in most of their games, their offense hasn’t come alive until the fourth quarter. That could point to a larger role for Harvey moving forward, as his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield sets him apart from Dobbins, who doesn’t have more than two catches in a game this year.
Dobbins is currently questionable for this week’s titanic showdown against the Chiefs after suffering a foot injury against the Raiders. If he can’t go, it will springboard Harvey into the spotlight, and with a strong performance against a very good Chiefs defense, he might not relinquish it.
Tez Johnson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Buccaneers currently have a comfortable lead in the NFC South, an impressive feat considering their offense has been decimated by injuries all year. All-Pro tackle Tristan Wirfs was on the shelf to start the season. Electric second-year running back Bucky Irving has missed well over a month and counting. The wide receiver room has been particularly devastated, as Chris Godwin has struggled to return from the broken fibula he suffered almost a year ago. Mike Evans has been a constant in Tampa thanks to his 11 straight 1,000-yard seasons, but that streak will end this year thanks to the broken collarbone he suffered last month.
First-round pick Emeka Egbuka has done most of the heavy lifting, and his fellow rookie Tez Johnson has come on strong in recent weeks to seize the No. 2 spot. After catching just one ball on three targets in the first three weeks, he now has 13 catches on 18 targets in the last three. He’s also scored three touchdowns in that stretch and four in his last four games, the first of which gave us the most adorable video of the season.
There’s no telling whether the MVP chants were for Tez or Baker 🤣 pic.twitter.com/yfRGMurtOx
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) October 13, 2025There’s no telling if and when Godwin and Evans will make it back, but whenever they do, Tez has shown that he deserves to be a part of this passing game down the stretch.
Malaki Starks and Mike Green, Baltimore RavensOffensive players get all the love, so it’s only right to spotlight a couple of defenders who have stepped up their games in recent weeks. The Ravens had a cataclysmic beginning to the season that saw them drop to an unthinkable 1-6, but they’ve roared back to within a game of the division-leading Steelers thanks to three straight win against the Bears, Dolphins and Vikings.
The offense has been solid in scoring an average of 29 points during that time, but it’s been the defensive turnaround that has really keyed this run. Baltimore had one of the worst defenses in the league to start the year, but they haven’t allowed a team to score 20 points since Week 5. Malaki Starks and Mike Green, their first- and second-round picks, have been a big reason why.
Starks picked off Tua Tagovailoa two weeks ago and JJ McCarthy on Sunday for the first two forced turnovers of his career, while Green sacked Caleb Williams in Week 8 and registered half a sack against the Dolphins. That sack on Caleb should count for extra given the Houdini act the Bears QB has pulled recently, spinning and juking and evading everything the Bengals and Giants have thrown at him.
The Ravens are back in the race, but they still have a lot of work to do. Very winnable games against the Browns, Jets and Bengals are lined up the next three weeks, while in the final month they’ll play the Patriots, Packers and the Steelers twice. If their rookies can keep up their recent pace, this is going to be a tough team to stop.
