Patriots coach: Signing 3 new running backs is ‘almost like Christmas morning’

FOXBOROUGH — Patriots running backs coach Tony Dews welcomed a trio of new players into his positional room this week.

With Terrell Jennings earning a spot on the 53-man roster and practice squad member Jashaun Corbin placed on injured reserve, New England brought in some more pieces at running back. The Patriots signed D’Ernest Johnson, Jonathan Ward and Rushawn Baker to their practice squad.

“It’s exciting. It’s almost like Christmas Day,” Dews said. “You wake up you’ve got all these shiny new toys.”

Of the new practice squad additions, the 29-year-old Johnson is the most accomplished at this point. The veteran back is in his seventh NFL season with 215 carries for 989 yards on his resume, along with experience returning kickoffs and punts.

Ward is in his fifth season and overlapped with Dews for two years in Tennessee — one as his positional coach in 2022 — and has 22 carries for 91 yards at the NFL level, as well as plenty of special teams experience.

Then Baker is the youngest of the bunch. The 22-year-old signed with the Giants as an undrafted free agent out of Elon last spring and has yet to play an NFL snap.

Though the trio of backs took a number of different roads to New England this week, Dews says their mission is now the same.

“They’re all great guys,“ Dews said. ”They’re all trying to catch up to speed. They’re all different and unique in their styles. So coming in the middle of the season like this, they’re being sponges trying to soak everything up. It comes back to blocking and fundamentals and techniques.

“They’re all running backs, so they know how to run. They’ve been doing it since they were young. So we’ve just gotta clean up the fundamentals, teach them the system, then when and if they get an opportunity, I’m certainly sure they’ll all take advantage of it.”