Antonio Gibson’s 2025 season is over. The veteran running back, who left the New England Patriots’ win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night, reportedly suffered a torn ACL and will be out for the foreseeable future.

The injury is a bad break for the 27-year-old, who served as a valuable member of the Patriots’ running back rotation this season and also worked as the team’s primary kickoff returner. Let’s analyze what Gibson’s season coming to an end just five games in means for both those spots and the team as a whole.

Including Gibson, the Patriots currently have three running backs on their active roster plus another on their practice squad. With him set to move to injured reserve, however, the overall depth chart will be down to three options: Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson as the top two at the position and Terrell Jennings as a depth piece and potential candidate to be promoted to the 53-man team.

In theory, a trio of Stevenson, Henderson and Jennings could be sufficient to survive the season. However, there are major questions attached to all three at this point in time.

Stevenson has had issues holding onto the football, losing three fumbles already this season on just 51 total touches; Henderson has looked every part the rookie he is and needs more time to develop into the do-it-all back his skillset suggests he could be; Jennings has yet to prove himself in the NFL after arriving as a rookie free agent last year. However, all three of them — especially Stevenson and Henderson — will be under pressure to help replace Gibson’s relatively limited but nonetheless important contributions.

Of course, the team could also opt to bring in another RB to help bolster the depth chart. That said, any additions at this point in time should likely not be expected to seriously change the complexion of the group.

Once removed from the 53-man roster and sent to injured reserve, Gibson will become the third running back and fourth backfield player overall to be shut down for the rest of the season. Before him, rookie Lan Larison and third-year man Deneric Prince already found their way to IR. In addition, fullback Brock Lampe also will not be back this year.

Besides those three, New England also has offensive linemen Yasir Durant and Layden Robinson, defensive lineman Isaiah Iton and cornerback Marcellas Dial Jr. on injured reserve. Linebacker Jahlani Tavai was also part of that group to start the season, but he became the first Patriot to return from IR on Saturday.

On Sunday against the Bills, the Patriots turned to Rhamondre Stevenson to fill Gibson’ role as a kickoff returner. In addition, they also continued having TreVeyon Henderson lining up deep as another candidate to field kicks. Both might factor into the mix as well moving forward, but one has to wonder how willing the team would actually be to expose them to additional hits in light of the Gibson injury.

It would therefore not be a surprise to see New England change its kickoff returner group moving forward. Whether that means installing a new KR or signing somebody off the open market or another team’s practice squad, will be seen.

Financial fallout

As part of the three-year, $11.25 million contract Gibson signed with the Patriots last March, he also had the opportunity to earn up to $2 million in incentives this season. One such performance escalator of $500,000 — for 600 scrimmage yards, a mark he reached last year — was classified as likely to be earned based on Gibson’s 2024 season.

With his 2025 campaign now coming to an end short of that goal and at only 112 yards from scrimmage, he will naturally miss out on any of his incentives this year. This means that the Patriots stand to get a $500,000 credit on their cap for that LTBE portion and also that the entirety of his 2026 incentives will now be seen as not likely to be earned (and therefore not immediately hit the cap).

In addition to his incentives, Gibson will also miss out on $360,000 worth of per-game roster bonuses. He did manage to earn $150,000 of those bonuses before going down, however.

Uncertain future awaits

The NFL can be a cruel business, and the Patriots moving on from Gibson next offseason looks like a possibility now. Not only will he be coming off a torn ACL, he also played only 17 percent of offensive snaps this season and will have just $1 million in contract guarantees remaining for 2026.

His contract structure in itself gives New England a potential out, but the injury only complicates matters from the running back’s perspective.