Patriots receiver Kyle Williams, right, celebrates his TD catch Thursday night with rookie Eli Raridon at Gillette Stadium. (AP photo)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Sometimes it’s better to run than to receive.

After all, it’s all part of the evaluation.

A lot of attention has been on what the New England Patriots will do at the receiver position, in terms of who stays and who goes.

But at running back, the team is looking to fill the void after putting Terrell Jennings on injured reserve; Jennings was to be the team’s third back behind the one-two punch of TreVeyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson.

Thursday night, they may have found his replacement in Jam Miller, who had 55 yards on 14 carries against the Indianapolis Colts second and third stringers.

“It felt great, I’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity I get,” Miller said. “I feel like when I’m at my best, I can keep going and keep fighting.”

The opportunity is there.

“I feel like every team is like that, from starting quarterback to starting running back, everybody just competes,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a business. I’m just trying to earn a spot on this team.”

As for Jennings, it’s a loss, Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said.

“We put guys on IR that ae going to be out for an extended amount of time, and unfortunately, Terrell will be in that group,” Vrabel said. “But it was good to see Jam come out and have some nice runs. I felt like he ran with his pads down and had a couple of physical runs, and was happy for him.

“This is a great evaluation. We can start to figure out guys that can and start to figure out guys that can’t too.”

One of those he was evaluating was rookie Gabe Jacas, whose case Vrabel got on for lackluster special teams play.

“I challenged him on a kickoff, andhe made a tackle,” Vrabel said. “I didn’t thinkthat his efforts were maybe good eough on the kickoff. I didnt epect that the guy that was blocking him to be able to block him, and then I challenged him, and he came up with a tackle on the kickoff. So that was a positive, and then we’ll just keep coaching him just like the rest of the guys.”

The other player who got some attention was quarterback Tommy DeVito, who is the No. 2 QB right now and played the first half Thursday.

“I thought there may be a couple of balls he’d like to have back, but I thought that there was good operation,” Vrabel said. “I thought there was good placement. … I thought for the most part he was fairly accurate, and the ball came out on time.”

“Yeah, I think just stuff is going to click,” DeVito said. “I think for myself, I missed a couple throws early, one over to Mack [Hollins] down the middle. I think the juices were flowing maybe a little too much, a little too much excitement, a little too much pace on the ball. So, really just taking some time to settle in.

“Like we said, first time really bullets are flying around myself specifically because we have that red jersey on, so it is a little different. But it is good. Once you get into that flow and then start feeling it and the guys around you are playing, it just becomes easy at that point.

And finally, you can talk about receivers, especially with second-year Kyle Williams.He had a TD catch and two receptions for 37 yards.