Derrick Henry led the league in yards, carries, and rushing TD for the second year in a row. Leroy Kelley did it from 1967-1968. It doesn't appear that anyone else did it since. A guy named Bill Paschal did it in 1943 and 1944; Steve Van Buren did it from 1947 to 1949; and Jim Brown did it in 1958-59. In fact, OJ Simpson is the only post-merger player I can find who led the league in all three categories twice in his career (1973 and 1975--it always comes back to OJ). For the record, Jim Brown did it four times because he's Jim Brown (1958, 1959, 1963 and 1965).
I've been a Derrick Henry fan ever since the 2014 Sugar Bowl. Something happened every time he touched the ball. I couldn't understand why he touched it only nine times. It was like watching a man among boys.
And that reception at the end was his only reception of the season! Incredibly, the guy making those plays was only 18 or 19 years old. Even more incredible: his senior year of high school highlight reel:
Also incredible: he looked like this when he was 14 years old. Here's a link to more footage--the "Derrick Henry Rule" in his middle school league starts around 1:50. According to that video, he never rushed for under 100 yards in any of his 45 career high school games. His senior year game log looks like something from Super Tecmo Bowl. Here are his high school stats:
So it isn't like he came out of nowhere. He was the best high school RB ever! I assumed that he would be the featured back in 2015 but instead he only got 172 carries. He made the most of them--990 yards and 11 TD. Bama was stacked that year with TJ Yeldon, Kenyon Drake, Amari Cooper and OJ Howard. There were too many mouths to feed so Henry didn't get a huge workload. I couldn't understand this, he was unstoppable yet he never got more than 20 carries in a game that year. Bama finish the year ranked sixth.
TJ Yeldon left for the NFL so Henry got all the carries in 2015, picking up 2219 yards (sixth best single-season total), 28 touchdowns (ninth best single-season total), a National Championship, the Doak Walker and Maxwell Awards, and the Heisman Trophy. He was a steamroller. He received high praise from brilliant pundits like me, opining "I said it before and I'll say it again. Just get be the ball to Derrick Henry." I think I was drunk when I wrote "get be the ball." I also posited "As I said here last year, just give the ball to Derrick Henry. He is not human." Mark concurred with "Stumping for Derrick Henry will never be a bad idea." TR, however, predicted that "Derrick Henry will not be an elite NFL running back. #hottake"
NFL front offices listened to TR instead of Mark and me. Henry was drafted #45 overall in 2016. This was the height of the "running backs grow on trees" phase of NFL team-building, but Melvin Gordon and TJ Yeldon went #15 and #36, respectively, the year before. People drafted ahead of Henry in 2016 include Paxton Lynch, Eli Apple, Corey Coleman, Josh Doctson, and Laquon Treadwell. My beloved Bills drafted Reggie Ragland at #41 and he never played a single down of football in a Buffalo uniform.
I knew the Titans had the steal of the draft. I took Henry in the seventh round of my fantasy football league--it's full of sharps, super competitive, and if you want a guy you have to move early. Mahomes went in the fifth round in 2018, for example. Sure, Tennessee had Demarco Murray, but he was 28 and coming off a shitty year in Philadelphia. Surely the superhuman rookie would get the bulk of the work.
I forgot that Mike Mularkey was involved in Tennessee. He's an idiot. He allocated almost three times as many carries to Murray as Henry in 2017, and an even split between the two in 2017.
Mike Vrabel took over in 2018 and made Henry the week 1 starter but he only averaged about 11 carries per game, then Vrabel demoted him for Dion Lewis in week 9. He finally gave the ball to Henry in week 13. Over the last four weeks of the 2018 season, Henry complied 585 yards and 7 TD on 87 carries, good for 6.72 yards per rush. He even threw a 6 yard completion. Then, of course, 2019 and 2020 were laser shows.
How the hell did this happen? Derrick Henry was literally the best high school running back in the history of high school running backs. Then he went to Alabama and put up eye-popping yards-per-carry numbers his first two years but couldn't get all the work because of TJ Yeldon? He had an all-time season his senior year as the featured back on the national championship team and won the Heisman, but didn't get drafted until the second round? And then his team needed over two and a half seasons to realize he was a cross between the Hulk and the Flash, while he languished behind a past-his-prime back averaging 3.6 yards per carry who got benched by his previous team for Ryan Mathews? How is this possible? How was he hiding in plain sight for years?
Mark and I had a text exchange about this. Most of the all-time great running backs were highly drafted and started right away. Curtis Martin's success was a bit of a surprise as a third rounder, but he started fifteen games as a rookie--it didn't take long for Parcells to figure out what he had. Terrell Davis was drafted in the sixth round, in large part due to his history of migraines, but he was able to overcome that with medication approved in 1997. Sumatriptan y'all! He started fourteen games as rookie because Shanahan knew what he had. I don't consider Frank Gore to be an all-time great but it only took him one season to become a starter.
The closest comparables are perhaps Ahman Green and Shaun Alexander who rode the bench behind Ricky Watters for two years and one year respectively. But Watters in Seattle was a hell of a lot better than Demarco Murray in Tennessee.
How do you not realize that you have a guy who can do this?
Or this?
After he did this.
Just about every aspect of Derrick Henry's career is remarkable, albeit in vastly different ways.
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23 comments:
your tribe are 8-point road dogs to drexel this afternoon. tribe has never lost at drexel when teej and i are in the building. we will not be there today. plan accordingly.
Hey, Josh Doctson had 81 caches one... lifetime.
Point taken on my #hottake misfire. But this post would have been more effective before his last game: 18 rushes for 40 yards, 3 catches for 11 yards, loss.
Sober TR is a real ballbuster.
You come at the TR, you best not miss.
Indeed. In other news, zson wants his pinewood derby car to be a VW Bus. Very cool, except this involves using two blocks of wood. I'm going to have to canoe both pieces to get under the weight limit, but I made good use of my band saw so the windshield has the right angle and that little bill/visor protrusion. I don't think any kids actually make their own cars.
I did one Pinewood Derby and I didn’t perform well. It actually sums up my extremely brief Cub Scout career. None of that shit has ever interested me much.
Ironically, being a husband/father is when all those scout reps really pay off. The last few days have hammered that home once again. I’ve used entirely too many tools for my liking.
i heard jimmy dykes say that he’d rather have his toughest player at the line in a close/late situation than his best free throw shooter. i suppose i get his drift, but he probably shoulda workshopped the actual words.
If choosing between Dale Davis and Reggie Miller I’ll take Reggie Miller.
that's an excellent illustration of dykes' fallacy. i'll take steph curry over draymond green, too.
Correct. I don’t dislike Dykes but his “I want a dude” schtick tends to get over played. Toughness matters. So does skill. And they’re not mutually exclusive. To both of your examples. I’d say Steph and Reggie are both plenty mentally and physically tough.
I’m legit excited for this Ravens-Bills game. I love Lamar. He broke my heart when he didn’t flip to Florida last minute. But I don’t blame him for spurning McElwain. The Bills resurgence behind Allen is an awesome story. Really hoping this is a classic.
Sorry for rooting against your nerves, Z.
Thanks Mark! Who do you want shooting free throws, Shaq or Nick Anderson?
I’m rooting for the Bills tonight. I like McDermott, I don’t like Harbaugh, and I like Zman (a little bit).
And I think Buffalo deserves one last shot before the New York Salehs take over the AFC East for the next ten years.
i'm rooting for snow. otherwise, the bills. but it'd be cool to see lamar do lamar stuff. also, i'm probably not watching unless snow. keep me posted.
Low blow Zoltan. Low fucking blow.
my daughter and i cooked chili together this evening. turned out really well. i forgot to buy cornbread at the store, but i found a box in the pantry. came out of the oven a little dense, but whatever. we each took a bit and looked at each other as if to say, "that's...not right".
expiration date on the box: march 2018. speak well of me when you speak of me.
You’ll be fine, rob. I once ate shrimp and grits that had been unrefrigerated in a van for 24 hours.
Hope you found an acceptable grain substitute. Real barn burner in Buffalo tonight.
one of the many benefits of a non-dry january is the way high-octane beers kill germs. that's my story.
Hope none of you bet the over on this one.
I’ve been texting with Z each of the past few Bills game days. I was quite excited about this game. Welp...
i'm trying to goad z into getting cocky. ain't working.
If the bills had Derrick Henry they wouldn’t have to throw the ball.
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