Heading into a contract season, Rhamondre Stevenson is in a good position.

Not only is he getting a chance to shine in a run-heavy, play action offense with Alex Van Pelt, but the Patriots have clearly shown a willingness to pay home grown guys that deserve it based on performance in this new era for the franchise.

Stevenson talked about that new offense on Tuesday when he met with the media, particularly noting that Van Pelt is more of an outside zone guy, something he’s familiar with from his college days.

“We didn’t really run too much outside zone last year,” Stevenson said. “Outside zone is actually a play you have to run and know how to run. It’s not like another play you can just go out there and…like, a gap scheme, you can kind of go out there and just run the play. But, outside zone. you need reps at it just to know how the linemen is getting off and just their angles and things like that. So, it’s gonna be…we’re gonna work on it all throughout OTA’s and camp.

“We ran a lot of this at Oklahoma in college, so I’m pretty familiar with it. It’s just getting my traction back right and things like that. But, I like the outside zone, getting the defense running and one-cut and go. When you hear outside zone, you kind of think ‘yeah, get the ball outside,’ but it’s not really like that. It’s stretching outside to go back up field.”

When asked what his favorite moment with his new OC has been so far, Stevenson was quick with a response you’d expect from a running back in a contract year.

“Favorite moment is all the runs he’s putting in, to be honest,” he said with a smile. “Just how he’s trying to scheme them up, just scheme them up. Scheme the runs up. Make everything run-action, pass-action, everything look the same. Just marry them up.”

When asked to clarify what scheming the run up means, it sounded like a bit of a shot at the old regime that tried to disastrously implement some zone schemes two years ago.

“Just getting everybody in position. Like, sometimes we might need an F to go up on the line…things like that. Just scheming it up the right way,” he added. “Just knowing if there’s a big D-end on that end then we might not need to run a weak side run on that guy, things like that.”

So, the offense is running back friendly and the team clearly has a newfound willingness to take care of their own. The only piece of the puzzle missing is whether or not Stevenson would be open to staying here long term.

Spoiler: He would.

“Yeah, I would say I love Boston. I love the Patriots. I love the organization and yeah, I’d love to be here for you know, a countless amount of years,” Stevenson said emphatically.

Barring an epic collapse on offense (it literally can’t be worse than last year, right?), Rhamondre Stevenson and this new era of Patriots football feels like a match made in Heaven.