The New England Patriots have plenty of questions surrounding its offense. It seems that quarterback Mac Jones won’t be the starting quarterback next season, especially if the Pats use the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft on a quarterback. We won’t know what direction they will go in until draft night, but New England ensured whoever is under center will have a reliable target in Hunter Henry, bringing him back for the short term.
Hunter Henry’s new contract numbers
Henry and the Patriots agreed to a three-year, $27 million deal, per Ian Rapoport. He can earn up to $3 million more with bonuses.
2023 statistics
Henry played in 14 games for New England last season. He brought in 42 of his 61 targets for 419 yards and six touchdowns. Henry was the second-best receiving option for New England and re-signing him will provide a reliable option for whoever the team chooses to start in 2024. He was paired with Mike Gesicki at the position, but Gesicki is a free agent and, at least at the time of this writing, hasn’t been re-signed by New England.
Henry finished as the overall TE18 in half-PPR scoring last season. His numbers were largely inflated by his touchdown numbers. Henry has been with New England for three years and has scored nine, two and six touchdowns in that time. If the Patriots end up taking a quarterback with their first-round pick and don’t make a splashy move to upgrade its wide receiver corps, Henry could be in the mix for the most targets on the team.
Will Henry be a TE1 in 2024?
No. He was tied for the second-most tight end touchdowns last season with six. Henry had the same amount of touchdowns as George Kittle, David Njoku, Cole Kmet and Mark Andrews. All four of those tight ends had at least 120 more receiving yards and that is just because Andrews had 544 playing in only 10 games last season.
It feels like everyone is hoping that New England can incorporate Rob Gronkowski 2.0 into its offense, but it isn’t happening. At this point, it is way too early to say for sure that the team won’t bring in another starting-caliber tight end by the start of the season. It’s also hard to predict what the offense will look like in the first season without head coach Bill Belichick at the helm since 1999. At best, Henry projects to be an early waiver wire pickup if he can start the season strong, but currently isn’t worth considering as a starting tight end for next season.