Derrick Henry is ahead of schedule.
The fact he leads the league in rushing yards — by triple-digits, no less — isn’t surprising. The fact he’s doing so in 70 degree weather is.
The Titans’ tailback typically spends the first month of the season spinning his tires before emerging as the linebacker-outrunning, safety-destroying monster we’ve come to expect in November and beyond. Coming into 2021, he’d averaged just 3.8 yards per carry in games 1-4 of the season; a pedestrian number that gives way to a stellar 5.9 in games 9-12.
The reigning offensive player of the year is on pace for nearly 2,200 rushing yards over a 17-game season. But every carry pushes him toward an invisible barrier that could cut his potential record-setting campaign down in its infancy.
Most touches through four games in any season…
Rodney Hampton 1993 -134
James Wilder 1985 – 129
Ricky Williams 2003 – 129
Derrick Henry 2021 – 127— Rich Hribar (@LordReebs) October 4, 2021
Henry’s trending toward 481 rushing attempts this fall — a number that would outshine Larry Johnson’s all-time record of 416 by a ridiculous amount. Johnson gained nearly 1,800 yards that year … then had barely 2,000 in the five seasons that followed before his retirement. Henry is clearly built differently in a league trending toward limiting running back wear and tear. After two seasons of leading the league in carries it’s fair to ask: how long can he keep this up?
A production cliff is coming, but no one’s quite sure when
Henry is special, even in a galaxy of physical specimens. For Titans/Oilers fans, he’s somehow combined the best qualities of the two best runners in franchise history. He charges into the trenches as though propelled by gunpowder like Eddie George. He batters linebackers and outruns safeties like Earl Campbell. He is a throwback in a league built on vertical passing offenses.
On top of it all, he’s also a player whose 247-pound playing weight seems like an inside joke thanks to the cardio of a 127-pound marathoner. Henry’s biggest strength goes beyond his vision and explosiveness. Instead, he finds ways to thrive late in games when most mortals begin to tire.
That’s led to massive gains and a massive workload. Since 2018, only one running back has come within 250 touches of Henry’s league-high 1,009 carries. That’s Ezekiel Elliott, whose production has faltered under the weight of his own overuse recently.
Henry is working toward something that hasn’t been done since 1979; leading the league in rush attempts three straight seasons. That was Walter Payton, who did it from ages 22 to 25, then racked up six more years with 300+ carries and five All-Pro honors in the eight years that followed. He is, clearly and understandably, the precedent Henry would like to follow.
But Payton is arguably the greatest back in league history. Let’s set our sights a little bit lower and see if we can’t create some less blasphemous comparisons to get a better idea of when Henry could grind to a halt. Here are the last 11 carries leaders dating back to Johnson, along with their age at the time, how much mileage they’d accrued, and how many good seasons they still had left in the tank:
Henry, at 247 pounds, is easily the biggest guy on this list. When he turns 28 in January he’ll be older than everyone but Michael Turner and Adrian Peterson should he lead the league in rushes again. He came into 2021 with more regular season runs on his odometer than all but two recent carry kings.
Recent data suggest he’s on borrowed time, but there is room for outliers. Turner seems like a valid comparison due to his size and age, but the Burner spent the first four years of his career spelling LaDainian Tomlinson in San Diego, giving him a limited workload before stepping into an RB1 role in Atlanta. Instead, the most useful parallel could be another physical marvel tasked with carrying a run-first offense into the playoffs; Adrian Peterson.
Peterson lacks Henry’s size, but shares his ability to pound defenses into submission with a neverending string of handoffs. He carried the ball 1,198 times his first four seasons — significantly more than the 1,072 touches of Henry’s last four years — before tearing his ACL 12 games into year five. This, amazingly, only improved his career trajectory. He returned early from knee surgery, played in all 16 regular season games, toted the ball 348 times, and was named NFL MVP after running for 2,097 yards.
The Titans’ back hasn’t shown that Wolverine-level of healing, mostly because he’s been immune to season-ending injury in his four-plus years in the pros. If Peterson truly is his closest comparison, that’s great news; the former Viking went on to lead the league in rushing yards and touchdowns at age 30 after he’d already taken 2,000+ regular season carries. He was still effective into his mid-30s with Washington as his odometer flipped toward 3k.
What’s this all tell us? That running backs wear down quickly, but there is room for deviation. Henry is already in a rarely-touched stratosphere inhabited by former MVPs and future (or current) Hall of Famers. For most tailbacks this ridiculous workload would be a concern. For Henry, it may just be the latest escalation in a career that’s played out like a series of Mike Vrabel coaching dares.
Derrick Henry is carrying the ball at a rate that would concern typical high-level NFL running backs. But Henry is anything but typical. Tractorcito is built to be the high-usage throwback capable of dragging his offense to prosperity behind him. Tennessee isn’t being irresponsible by riding him for 30+ touches per game — it’s being smart.
