The throwback:
Is the Titans’ hard-running Derrick Henry the future of the NFL or a relic of its bruising past?
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Derrick Henry is a generational talent who happened to be born into the wrong generation.
He could have given Jim Brown a run. He’d have been perfectly suited for the 1980s and those big, impossibly fast running backs like Eric Dickerson, Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson.
Such comparisons are lofty; yet they’re looking more appropriate each week.
What we’re witnessing from Henry is so rare as to suggest greatness, the kind that gets immortalized on NFL highlights and turns pretty good teams into great ones.
The thrilling 42-36 overtime win over the Texans at Nissan Stadium in Week 6 – after which Titans coach Mike Vrabel appropriately said Henry took over the game and put the team on his back – was just another example of what was already on minds:
“To be honest,” receiver A.J. Brown said, “Derrick is very special.”
Whether Henry is the NFL’s best running back is debatable. What’s not is there’s no one like him.
Henry isn’t the future of football, though. He is its past – as if he stepped out of a time machine, determined to prove those great NFL backs of yesteryear would be just as impactful now.
He’s a throwback in every sense of the word, hard-working, physically dominant on the field and refreshingly humble off it.
After 212 rushing yards and so much on-field heroism Oct. 19 – especially the 94-yard touchdown just as the game was slipping away – Henry walked into a news conference and explained that play as follows: “We scored,” going on to stress that it was great blocking that made it happen.
“I’m praising my teammates,” Henry said. “Those guys are incredible. Other guys make plays. Wasn’t me. I just had to go out there and do my job.”
Henry repeatedly praised backup Jeremy McNichols: “He don’t show up in the stats that much, but he does a great job for us.” Henry was asked about quarterback Ryan Tannehill as an MVP candidate and lit up:
“M-V-P! Let’s start the campaign right now.”
Not every superstar in the NFL is a prima donna, but there are enough of them to make you admire the way King Henry always tries to sound and how hard he has worked to get to this point in his career.
Teammates have to love that about him. They marvel at Henry’s ability, yes, but “when you get over here and meet the guy, get to know him, I think I became one of his biggest fans,” said recently signed linebacker Jadeveon Clowney.
Only in an era like this one, which undervalues running backs and overthinks itself into third-down specialists, could someone like Henry – Heisman Trophy in hand – have fallen into the second round of the 2016 draft. Just think: Linebacker Kamalei Correa, whom the Titans barely used and just traded to the Jaguars to swap a seventh-round pick for a sixthround pick, was drafted three picks ahead of Henry.
Only in the current football climate could the Titans, after drafting Henry, need years to figure out what they had. They spent millions of dollars and many snaps on Dion Lewis before finally realizing good things usually happen when you keep giving the football to No. 22. Once that sunk in, a middling team nearly reached the Super Bowl – and has started this season 5-0.
Only in present times, though, could conventional football wisdom still disagree with Henry receiving a pricey, long-term contract this past offseason. The Titans were reluctant. They’d used the franchise tag. Henry probably would have played under it, too, had he not agreed to a hometown discount, so to speak, and a team-friendly deal.
Henry’s willingness to do that, I believe, can be tied to something he said when asked about his humility and reluctance to brag about himself.
“Because it can be here today and gone tomorrow,” Henry said. “I’m tremendously blessed. God has blessed me tremendously, me and my family, so I’m appreciative every day I get to wake up and live my dream. A lot of guys don’t get an opportunity like this.”
This season, Tannehill cost the Titans about $22.5 million against the salary cap. The price tag for Clowney and Vic Beasley collectively was about the same as Tannehill, and those two pass rushers don’t yet have a Titans sack between them.
So that $6 million for Henry – it’ll increase the next three years – looks like quite a bargain, huh?
It might end up being the best money the team has ever spent.