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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The NFL running back must possess an exceptional characteristic, some trait that pops off the screen, into your mind and has you coming back for more.

This season provides a full menu of options.

Saquon Barkley runs through linebackers with keg-sized thighs. Alvin Kamara dodges, ducks, dips and dazzles with a sadistic smile that glistens off his grill. Tarik Cohen is a science experiment discovered through a magnifying glass—so small, so quick, so breathtaking. Christian McCaffrey leaves you in the dust. Derrick Henry stiff-arms you into tomorrow. Todd Gurley is the king on Sean McVay's chess board. Ezekiel Elliott runs with numbing violence.

All have distinguishable greatness.

That is not the case with one running back in New England. The guy with the ordinary name and ordinary game chipping away at defenses one shimmy, one shake, one seven-yard gain at a time. James White is easy to miss. For one, his locker is positioned immediately to the right of the entrance, so it's easy for anyone to stroll right by. White isn't big, nor ripped, nor Tarik-diminutive at 5'10," 205 pounds. He isn't a burner. His 4.57 in the 40 is a legit 4.57, and he has only four runs of 20-plus yards on his 203 career carries.

The player who has become so crucial to the greatest dynasty in modern sports is hiding in plain sight.

Stop at that locker, and he's ultra-polite, ending nearly every sentence with a hearty chuckle. His Twitter handle begins with "SweetFeet" and his nickname as a kid was "Smiley."

He's not crafting a personal brand like so many other modern athletes. No, he'd just as soon hang with his wife at home in the burbs and open his phone each morning to read a Bible verse as spend time on that.

Then, you look up and see the numbers. Through 15 games, White has 1,107 total yards and 83 receptions, and on Sunday, he scored his 11th touchdown of the season.

Then, you realize it's late December. James White Szn is coming. This is when he shines: when the stakes are highest.

So something must separate White. The words "Only The Strong Survive" are tatted on his chest, a grandfather's name is on his arm. He takes a seat, sips from a water bottle and acknowledges that his game does not elicit double-takes. He doesn't really care.

White knows 11 backs were drafted ahead of him. Six of the 11 aren't even in the NFL anymore. He doesn't care about that, either. He's not out to stick it to the doubters.

"I keep it the same, no matter how much success I have or how much I'm struggling," White says. "I try to keep the same attitude. I just do whatever I can to help my team win. Be a good teammate. Be a good husband. Try to be a good person. That's my whole mode. Whatever comes with that is just a bonus."

Moments later, his rhetoric sharpens.

"I have this role on this team, and I know what I'm capable of. Whatever they need me to do, I can get it accomplished."

The Patriots have needed White more than ever in 2018. He kept the offense humming through injuries and Julian Edelman's suspension with at least 10 touches in 10 of the first 13 weeks. After the Josh Gordon experiment crumbled, he was back at it Sunday with another 10 touches.

His father, Tyrone White Sr., puts it best. What makes his son great is a "hidden talent." He's hovered below the radar most his life, with so many—college recruiters, pro scouts, fans—having had a hard time pinpointing what that hidden talent was. Yet White has always been the one slipping through the defense for a critical first down, touchdown or moment that changed the game or even the season.

And here he is, on the cusp of doing it again.

"Be the best at what you do," he says. "I work hard. I try to outwork my opponents and make them deal with me. ... You want to feel like you're the best player when you step out onto the field. That should be everybody's mindset. Not just my mindset. You're the best, and you're going to outwork your opponent."

Twelve teams are about to be whittled down to two.

If the Patriots are going to be one of those two for the fourth time in five years, White's hidden talent will be one of the reasons why.

So what is it?

He can't think of the college coach's name off the top of his head. Or, possibly, White is too nice to say the man's full name on the record. Either way, UConn's running backs coach was pretty blunt with him in person.

"He said I wasn't quite fast enough," says White, with another chuckle. "It was just shocking to hear."

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Later, he's told the coach's name is Terry Richardson and he's back at UConn after a brief stop in the NFL.

"He's back at UConn? Great," says White. "Everybody's entitled to their opinion. Maybe I wasn't as fast as some other backs."

White's family visited 17 different colleges in all, and Richardson wasn't alone. One coach praised White to his face, to his family's faces, on...and on...and on...until his mother, Lisa, kindly pointed out the whiteboard behind him. The coach clearly had White ranked at the bottom of his running back wish list. If only those coaches, if NFL scouts, if everyone could've seen White on a day-to-day basis. Then, his value would've crystallized.

There was never one tragedy that inspired, one breakout moment that propelled him. Rather, White's been crafted into a perfect player at the perfect time for New England, day by day, since he was three years old.

Look first to the baseball field.

White was "scary" throwing a baseball at three years old, according to Dad. He barely knew how to talk but already had a rocket for an arm. Set to play on a pre-tee-ball team, he was bumped up to regular tee-ball and played with older kids the rest of his childhood. He threw so hard—"on a rope, on a line drive," Dad says—that White was eventually told not to throw it to first base because the nobody could corral his missiles. As he got older, White never developed a curveball, a change-up, anything. Only "straight heat," Tyrone says.

White eventually moved to the outfield, made states as a senior in high school and worked out for the Seattle Mariners. If he'd attended a college with a baseball team, White would've kept playing, too.

Look to his upbringing.

There are clues everywhere in South Florida. Lisa was a probation specialist, Tyrone was a police officer, and he, especially, could be rough on White. He saw the worst of humanity in the streets and was determined to raise his son right, disciplined. So into White's teenage years, summers in this household were spent writing up book reports. Dad wanted his two boys—and any of their friends stopping by—to learn and learn and learn some more. Tyrone Jr., four years older than James, loved the Harry Potter series. White read so many books, his memory of them is a blur.

Some days, they'd have to whip up chapter summaries. Other days, Tyrone Sr. would give them a written test.

"Trick 'em up," he says.

The list of chores was long for White: take out the garbage, clean the bathroom, mow the grass, clean the critters out of the in-ground pool.

Look to that tat on his arm.

"J Willis." White is named after his grandfather, Mom's dad, who also helped raise him. Willis, a bus driver who and military veteran, died when White was in eighth grade.

"[He was] always helping others," White says. "Cared about others more than himself."

Look to those hands that flirted with the record books this season.

Father and son played catch with a purpose. Tyrone Sr. drilled his son through a series of specific catches, always cranking up the degree of difficulty. One-handed catches. Over-the-shoulder catches. And the one that helped White most today was when Dad made him stand 15 or so yards away with his back turned to him. He'd gun it to his son, yell, "Ball!" and White had to quickly turn around to catch it.

Countless footballs smacked him in the face.

"I'm like, 'You've got to give me a little bit of a heads up!'" White says.

Today, he makes this exact reception look routine.

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Giovani Bernard, a close friend and high school teammate who lived with the Whites, joined in on these drills as well. It's no coincidence the Bengals vet regularly eclipses 40 receptions per season.

Look to the genes.

Good hands run in the White family. Tyrone played receiver in high school, then Missouri Valley and Florida A&M in college.

And look to what White's always done with the football's in his hands.

On his Pop Warner team, White made peers look ridiculous. Tyrone Sr. remembers one play specifically, at Cooper City, in which his son took a handoff and made cuts "you'd never expect a child of his age to make." Kids fell into crumpled heaps, one by one, which is why friends called him "Flash" then. Nobody could touch White. Yet even then, Dad instilled humility. As White's third-grade coach, he'd always move his son to the offensive line after a handful of carries.

He wanted to give those linemen a shot and wanted unselfishness to be a virtue his son lived by. Of course, he also knew his son was special all along.

When eight running backs were vying for the prestigious starting job at St. Thomas Aquinas High School, White told his dad he was thinking about moving to cornerback. "No, you're not," Tyrone Sr. said, and that was that. White won a state title as a junior and rushed for 1,000-plus yards and 20 scores as a senior despite Bernard generating more recruiting buzz.

In college at Wisconsin, White kept producing despite being perpetually overshadowed, first by Montee Ball and later by Melvin Gordon.

Andy Manis/Associated Press/Associated Press

One set the FBS touchdown record. One was local, younger, more explosive, a Heisman runner-up. Still, lessons were learned in Madison. As a freshman, White once fumbled while stretching the ball over the goal line, and Bret Bielema told him that was unacceptable. Got it. Running backs coach Thomas Hammock told all his backs that if they fumbled, they'd be benched. 10-4.

White has never fumbled on his 447 touches in the pros.

And then there was a sudden moment in New England when he wasn't being overshadowed anymore. Trailing 28-3 against the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl, White was the one bringing New England back. Two years after serving as a healthy scratch in a Super Bowl win, he caught 14 passes, scored three touchdowns and amassed 139 total yards in a game that will live forever. He had four touchdowns in those playoffs and last year scored another four.

He wasn't nervous that epic night in Houston. He's never nervous. Practice hard daily, he says, and "your heart won't be beating out of your chest."

White's family was in the stands for his shining moment but never even saw the game-winning score live with so many fans obstructing their view. The first time Mom, Dad and Tyrone Jr. even saw the play was on TV at 5 in the morning. What followed, for White, was fun. He went to Disney World, he appeared on late-night shows with Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien, he was an overnight celebrity. And he was happy when it was all over to get back to work.

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Because in New England, running backs don't last long.

"People aren't going to remember you in the Super Bowl if you go out there and put it on the ground and cost your team," Tyrone Sr. says. "What Super Bowl? The dream's over with. That's the past, and moving forward, you ain't won a Super Bowl."

Sitting nearby, Tyrone Jr. chimes in.

"Especially out here. It's, 'Are you helping us get closer to there or helping us get further from there?'"

That's what drives every decision Bill Belichick makes.

And right now, Belichick really, really needs White to help the Patriots get closer.

This year, Belichick made a very Belichickian renovation to the Patriots locker room. The name plates above all lockers are now electronic. So when he unceremoniously ships a player out of town, all the team needs to do is hit "delete" on a keyboard and type in a new name.

It's perfect for a boss with the heart of a Lannister, one who's always tweaking, re-tweaking and re-re-tweaking the roster. The Green-Ellises, Woodheads, Blounts, Vereens, Grays, Ridleys and Lewises come and go. Belichick has revolutionized bargain shopping at running back, pissing off so many as he kicks them to the curb. (Both Dion Lewis and Steven Ridley had choice words just this season.)

White, in theory, would be no different. Another casualty.

Yet Belichick has seemed to display true affection for him. It's as if he's been swiping left for two decades before finally swiping right. Even after drafting Sony Michel in the first round, Belichick increased White's role and lavished him with praise all season long. Because Belichick, unlike anyone before him, was able to identify and unlock all of the hidden talent within White.

He knows there's more to White than what meets the eye. That this is someone who studies what all 11 players on the field must do on a weekly basis. White says repeatedly he knows this offense "inside and out."

"So I can be put in any spot," White says. "I know what Tom [Brady] is looking at, what the offensive line's looking at, so it helps me play faster and play smarter."

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Where the viewer sees a blase dump-off, there's so much more. Brady runs this offense to the inch, demanding backs and receivers arrive at specific spots at specific moments. So when White leaks out of the backfield, he searches for that spot, finds it, takes a "snapshot" of the defense in real time and then turns 180 degrees as if his dad is shouting "Ball!"

After that, he's back on that Pop Warner field.

His go-to move has been dubbed the "dead leg" by teammates. He cuts off one leg, left or right, leaving linebackers in a crumpled heap. White drills this one-on-one situation all the time on the practice field in Foxborough, too. The key, he notes, is reacting to which way a defender's body is leaning. That's how the Super Bowl comeback against Atlanta got rolling in the first place. On his first touchdown, White took his mental snapshot—corner Jalen Collins was drifting outside—turned, caught Brady's pass in the flat and knew to turn back inside to score.

Turn outside and he's clobbered.

Turn outside and maybe the Patriots are clobbered, too.

Not surprisingly, White's favorite player growing up was do-it-all-back Brian Westbrook.

Back as a rookie, the X's and O's cluttered White's mind to the point of not knowing what he was doing. Now, when Brady calls two plays in the huddle, White not only keeps up, he thrives. He's the one Brady trusts. QB and RB have developed a telepathic connection that could be a true weapon this January.

Inside the locker room, White's value is clear.

"He can do it all," cornerback Stephon Gilmore says. "And he works hard. You see it every day. We know how good he is and how valuable he is to our team. How he helps us win. He's a hard worker."

Adds guard Shaq Mason, "Sometimes, there will be moments when a linebacker's covering him and he does a move to get open. I see it and I'm like, 'That's crazy.' He really can't be covered by a linebacker."

Rob Gronkowski is getting creaky. Sony Michel is still so young. Josh Gordon is gone. The Patriots will need White to be their Superman this winter.

It's a role he's comfortable with, on and off the field. When he's not studying defenses, he's probably dropping off a load of clothes at Goodwill or doing work with "Best Buddies," a program that helps place adults with disabilities into the workforce. He has a burning desire to make everyone he can feel welcomed in this world. Helping people like his friend Chris get jobs through this program means as much to him as any touchdown. Football, he insists, does not define him.

"Having success in football is pretty cool," White says, "but it's not everything to me."

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When White says he truly doesn't care if he touches the ball 20 times or zero times in a game, it's sincere. When he says his heart truly never races on the field—not even in those do-or-die playoff moments—he means it.

So forget that electronic nameplate. White repeats that he has never fretted about losing his job here in New England. You literally see why written across his chest. This "Only The Strong Survive" tattoo was inscribed back during his sophomore year of college. From the high school backfield, to Madison, to watching New England win a Super Bowl his rookie year as a spectator, being buried on a depth chart never affected him. As his mom points out, White was the first player to jolt into the air when the Patriots knocked off Seattle in that Super Bowl.

He always finds a way to rise to the top.

"Not everything is going to go your way," White says, "and the only people who are going to get through it are the strong ones—the ones who can keep battling."

This postseason, minutes before taking the field, White knows his phone will be inundated with the same messages his parents gave him back when he was a kid: "Ball security! Work hard! Have fun!" Then, be it trying to process X's and O's as 76,000 scream at Arrowhead Stadium, or chipping J.J. Watt off the edge, or trailing by 25 points in a Super Bowl, White knows he'll be able to stay cool and calm for three hours.

Such calm won't get retweeted into oblivion like a Zeke blast or a Kamara leap, but it could prove equally dangerous.

Again.

Tyler Dunne covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @TyDunne.