NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Derrick Henry has one more fall with the Tennessee Titans for sure, and that’s probably it, even if he puts together the kind of monster season that is quite possible by all indications, trends and glances at his 6-3, 247-pound collection of muscles sprinting headlong toward end zones at preseason camp.
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Let’s say Henry, no longer slamming into a handful of unblocked defenders at once on first-half first downs in Todd Downing’s offense, finds more room in Tim Kelly’s offense of intended balance. Let’s say he improves on the 1,538 yards he somehow managed in 2022 behind a bad offensive line with Ryan Tannehill out for five games. Let’s call it 1,700, his average production in the past three full seasons he’s played.
He’ll still be at the top of his profession. And he’ll be 30 on Jan. 4. And he’ll be around 1,500 carries since the start of the 2019 season. And he’ll hit the market and get something like, what, a year for $5 million from someone? It doesn’t seem right. But it shouldn’t be surprising. It’s the story of the NFL offseason. The plight of the running back. The franchise tags, the reluctant succumbing to reality, the angry trade requests, the utterly bizarre owner quotes.
Henry has immersed himself in it, and this is not a guy who normally speaks out or tweets about anything.
“You can get 2,000 yards, and 2,000 yards is great, but everybody else is looking at the carries,” he said in his first news conference of camp, which was longer than normal and dominated by this topic. “You have 380, 400-plus carries, that’s the thing everybody looks at. So no matter what we do, it seems like even if we are productive, when it comes to negotiation, it’s kind of used against us at that point.”
Henry started the running backs group chat that led to the video call that brought more attention to the topic, even if it isn’t likely to yield much beyond cathartic venting among friends.
It’s still worthwhile for these guys to rally around each other and try to do something — short of any chance to change NFL market conditions, maybe they can find a sponsor for something like Nissan’s “Heisman House” campaign, featuring a mansion filled with great backs who encounter hijinks and engage in pithy dialogue. It’s good to see some solidarity, anyway.
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And it’s bad, if you love football, to consider who might be on the calls in 10 years. Take a moment to reflect on the totality of your football-watching consciousness and answer this: Which position group has brought you the most joy?
Like, Tom Brady might be the best player ever. Or Peyton Manning. I might go Lawrence Taylor. Most would pick a quarterback. I’m much more likely to drop what I’m doing and watch five straight minutes of Barry Sanders highlights than relive anyone’s smart reads and sharp throws.
For my money, give me Sanders and Walter Payton and Jim Brown and Bo Jackson and Earl Campbell and Gale Sayers and Adrian Peterson and Marshall Faulk and the best versions of today’s best as well — Henry and Christian McCaffery and Josh Jacobs and the recently signed Saquon Barkley and the trade-requesting Jonathan Taylor — and I’ll put their entertainment value up against any other position group.
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In this city, they’ll still be talking about Henry’s 99-yard touchdown run against Jacksonville, the play that vaulted him toward greatness late in the 2018 season, long after he’s retired and the Titans have moved into the BarCrawlDome.
So many of the most electric moments in the history of sports here belong to him. The bursts to the end zone, flying past and outdistancing much smaller players. The stiff-arms that sent some of those same players hurtling toward meme mockery. The goal-line plunges through throngs of bigger players. The jump passes. The modern record of 561 rushing yards in his first four playoff games, which included 182 at New England and 195 at Baltimore in 2020. Dragging the Titans to within a bad half of making the Super Bowl.
As some might recall, there was plenty of “Don’t pay a running back!” squawking regarding Henry in the offseason that followed. Folks who had a better grasp of how important he was to the Titans, how durable he had been and long-lasting he appeared, dunked on that silliness. Then-GM Jon Robinson, who took the Heisman winner out of Alabama at No. 45 in his first draft in 2016, tagged Henry. But he was earnest all along about making a long-term deal happen.
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It happened, four years, $50 million, $25.5 million guaranteed. Henry responded immediately with a 2,027-yard season for a top-five offense in the NFL. He might have reached 2,000 again in 2021 for the AFC No. 1 seed, but he suffered a foot fracture, the lone serious injury of his football career. He has long since returned on the investment and is about to add a bundle of production to the return in the final year of the deal.
Yes, Henry is an outlier. But it’s worthwhile in these times to remember that investment in a back beyond a rookie deal and tag can work. That Robinson, who was fired amid last season’s 7-10 disappointment, did the right thing by bucking convention (Robinson, who has stayed under the radar since his firing, declined to comment, but Ryan Cowden, his vice president of player personnel and now the Giants’ executive adviser to the GM, texted: “We made decisions based on what we thought would help us win … which we found a way to do a decent bit of that in my time there.”)
And it’s worth noting that Henry has the attributes that could have made him a heck of an NFL linebacker.
“A Ray Lewis type,” he said, though I’m looking at those dimensions and that speed and wondering whether he wouldn’t be better coming off the edge for a dozen sacks a year or so.
In either case, we’re talking more career longevity and career earnings. Henry believes Nick Saban at least “had visions” of Henry as a defender, though Saban told CBSSports.com in 2020 that other suitors for Henry were focused on him as an outside linebacker while Saban told him he could play whatever he wants.
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And the next Derrick Henry? If there is one? He stopped short of saying he has been underpaid in his career, or that he would switch positions if he could go back in time. But when I asked him whether players like him coming up now are more likely to play positions other than running back, Henry said: “They better.”
They better?
Say it ain’t so, Derrick.
“They better choose that, the way it’s going right now,” he continued. “But we’re trying to change it. But I just tell kids to follow your heart, whatever you have a desire in, a passion, what makes you most excited about the game, that position, play that. I just want to be a light and somebody to look up to, trying to change the platform of running backs and trying to get our share.”
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This is not new, of course. This isn’t even new for Titans running backs who have rushed for 2,000 yards in a season. Chris Johnson told TMZ Sports in 2019 that he would have played cornerback if he could go back in time, that he would have had a much longer and more fruitful career at that position, and he said of his sons: “I’m going to make sure I keep them away from running back.”
Imagine that, Titans fans. Johnson covering receivers instead of providing all the thrills he provided when he was one of the fastest men to ever carry a football. If you’ve been following this franchise since its Houston origins, let’s throw Campbell at middle linebacker on the all-time team while Henry and Eddie George rush on either side of him.
All due respect to defense, how awful. What would Sanders have been if he wasn’t the most creative and elusive runner ever? A 5-8, 200-pound corner?
He’s actually a good example of why this might be an overreaction, as a college football coach insisted Saturday. Some of the best backs of all time, such as Sanders, are so much better there than they would be anywhere else, it’s still an easy choice. It’s still worth being a multiyear NFL player, even if market conditions for running backs are terrible compared with any other position.
“You’re always gonna be what you are,” Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi told The Athletic. “In college, you’re always going to be put in position to be most successful, and wide receivers are generally different dudes than running backs. Different skill sets. Same thing for (defensive) guys. There are only a handful of guys who can play defensive back, wide receiver or running back.”
Narduzzi also thinks the NFL game will cycle back in the direction of more favorable toward running backs at some point, and hopefully he’s right. The Power 5 level is where we might see some potentially great running backs push to catch passes in the slot or defend them. Vanderbilt football general manager Barton Simmons echoed Narduzzi’s thoughts — saying “a lot” of running backs don’t fit seamlessly elsewhere — and said of this NFL-fueled forecast: “I don’t think it has trickled down in any noticeable way yet.”
In the meantime, it would be nice to see running backs rewarded more for greatness now, and then maybe helped a bit in several years in the next round of collective bargaining. It would be nice to continue to enjoy players who should be playing a critical, and the most entertaining, position.
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But there’s a lot of evidence against choosing running back right now. With more coming when Henry hits the market in a few months.
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(Photo: Harry How / Getty Images)
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