The Patriots finally found a back who can tilt the RB3 job in a different direction.
For most of the offseason, that spot looked like a two-man race. Terrell Jennings was the early favorite, but he landed on season-ending IR before New England even got to its first preseason game. That opened the door for Lan Larison and Jam Miller, two backs who each flashed one side of the job but never quite stitched the whole thing together.
Larison brought the pass-game juice. The former UC Davis star, who piled up more than 2,300 total yards in his final season with the Aggies, was the Patriots’ primary receiving back in the preseason.
He finished with 27 touches for 118 yards and a touchdown, and while his 2.2 yards per carry wasn’t much to write home about, his 26.3 receiving yards per game stood out. His momentum was short-lived, though.
After an encouraging preseason opener in 2025, he went on season-ending IR with a broken foot.
Miller, meanwhile, looked like he might have the inside track after he was left out of the final preseason game. That usually signals a team is protecting a player it plans to keep, and the former Alabama back had shown enough to make that idea feel real.
He handled 25 carries over the first two games for 91 yards, a 3.6-yard average, and also had one drop. But the final verdict went the other way: Miller was released with an injury designation, which may explain why he didn’t take the field in the last game.
So New England went shopping.
On Saturday, the Patriots sent a 2028 seventh-round pick to the Cardinals for Corey Kiner. That pick was the same one New England received in the Kayshon Boutte deal, which means the sequence was completed as Boutte for Kiner and Jaylen Reed.
Kiner brings a different profile than the other backs the Patriots had been sorting through. He didn’t play much in 2025, logging just 30 offensive snaps and six more on special teams. But in the preseason for Arizona, he was on the field plenty: 98 offensive snaps and eight on special teams across four games.
The production followed. Kiner ran 39 times for 180 yards and two touchdowns, good for 4.6 yards per carry.
Nine of those runs moved the chains, and four went for 10 yards or more. He also caught five passes for 28 yards.
At 5-foot-9 and 209 pounds, Kiner isn’t a natural receiving back, and his college numbers back that up. Over four seasons at LSU and Cincinnati, he caught 32 passes for 172 yards.
But as a runner, he was the most polished of the group. He finished his last two college seasons with 2,200 rushing yards, posted a 5.5 average in both years, and scored nine times.
That’s what makes him such an intriguing fit for New England. He offers more as a runner than Larison and more as a receiver than Miller, which puts him squarely in the mix for the third running back job.
He also gives the Patriots a player who could factor into the return game. Kiner handled just two kick returns in college, but the team could use him there the way D’Ernest Johnson grew into that role last season after returning eight kicks from 2022-2024.
He’s only 24, which matters too. This isn’t just a stopgap move. It looks like the kind of under-the-radar trade that could pay off beyond this season, especially with Arizona’s backfield depth creating an opening for New England to pounce.
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