The mightily frustrating season for Derrick Henry truthers, such as ourselves, hit it’s peak on Thursday Night Football. The monstrous back rumbled, stumbled and bumbled for a Titans-record 238 yards and four touchdowns. That’s right. Henry dismantled one of the league’s best run defenses to the tune of 238 yards and four touchdowns on only 16 carries — highlighted by a 99-yard touchdown run, where he stiff-armed the entire Jags’ defense. The reason why it was so frustrating for people like us, is because we were all-in on Henry as a lead-back. We knew that his combination of speed and size is unmatched at that position and he deserved a chance to be a workhorse.
When the Titans cut the DeMarco Murray back in early-March, we were ecstatic. When the Schefter tweet alert hit my phone, I made sure to call The Wolf right away. We were waiting for this moment for what seemed like forever. We were saying, “He’s a first round lock!”
Then, the Titans decided to hire a branch from Sean McVay’s coaching tree, Matt LeFleur, who prefers to merge the running and passing game, ala the 2017 Rams. Then soon after, the Titans signed Dion Lewis to a fat contract — a player who fits in LeFleur’s system like a glove. We were devastated. The bottom fell out of Henry’s draft stock, and the rest is history.
The thing that sucks about Thursday night is that it gave us a glimpse of what could have been — if Henry was given a workhorse role. On his 54-yard score later in the game, the former ‘Bama back quieted the haters when he peaked at 21.74 mph, which was the fastest speed hit by a ball-carrier on a touchdown this season. It’s too bad he’ll be subjected to a backfield timeshare for the remainder of this season and beyond, because in the end, it was just a giant dick-tease.
