The ageless, bruising Derrick Henry is making running backs matter again

TThe NFL is a passing league – or so we are told. That has been the case for almost twenty years. Each new linecontract, coaching hire and draft slot reinforce that the sport is now designed to attack or defend the sky. But it looks like Derrick Henry didn’t get the memo.

In a league that eats up running backs with a ruthlessness bordering on contempt, Henry continues to plow forward. In his ninth season, the 30-year-old future Hall of Famer is once again at the top of the league in rushing. And it’s not even particularly close. Six weeks in, Henry leads the rushing race by almost 100 yards over San Francisco’s Jordan Mason, by pounding away between the tackles.

It’s not just Hendrik. Offenses across the league have looked to the ground game to relieve pressure on their passing attacks early in the new season, hoping to exploit holes in defensive schemes tailored to stop explosive passing games. Teams are rushing at the fastest rate since 2008 through six weeks, with teams at this point in a season averaging a 4.5 yards per carry record and more rushing per game in 40 years.

But Henry still lives in his own world. Baltimore’s signing of the aging back was one of the more intriguing moves of the offseason. Even amid the tantalizing prospect of a backfield for Henry-Lamar Jackson, it was fair to wonder about the negative scenarios. How much tread was left on the tires? What if the Ravens were forced to give him touches and take the ball out of Jackson’s hands? What if the offense becomes siloed and bounces back and forth between a structure that suited Henry and one that served the team’s supernova quarterback better?

Henry’s answer to those questions, to paraphrase Marshawn Lynch: running through everyone’s faces.

Through the first six weeks of the season, Henry leads all players in rushing yards per game and rushing touchdowns. He’s the only back with 10 or more rushing attempts for an average of 5.9 yards per carry – and has also achieved a lead the longest individual run of the season. Any of these would be impressive for a veteran who should be the end of his career is approaching; to take the lead in all four is objectively crazy.

The numbers keep coming. On 24 carries against the Commanders last week, Henry rushed for 34 yards above expectations, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Only one player (Christian McCaffrey) reached that goal in four or more games last season. Henry has already eclipsed it four times this season. You almost have to refresh the page to check if he’s really 30.

Let’s not get confused: Lamar Jackson is the player who makes Baltimore’s offense sing. Early in games, Jackson’s threat on the ground and through the air has opened up easier rushing lanes for Henry. But where Henry has benefited is in the second half of games, where he goes into sledgehammer mode against depleted defenses.

Henry has become the league’s preeminent closer – the sport’s answer to Mariano Rivera. According to Pro Football Focus, Henry has averaged 6.8 yards per carry in fourth quarters and overtime this season while rushing for 246 yards and a touchdown. In the first half of games, he was used partly as a decoy and partly as a tool to wear down the defense, racking up 4.3 yards per carry. As the defense starts to squeak in the second half, the Ravens lean on Henry to carry them home. In the fourth quarter you can almost see the opposing defenders begging, “Can you just play once?” No. No, they can’t. In the final quarter, Henry’s average jumps to 6.3 yards per carry.

None of this is normal. It’s even more remarkable when you consider Henry’s brutal running style, workload and age. He has carried the ball 2,149 times in the pros, on top of the 609 plays in college and 1,379 attempts in high school. Few backs smell 2,000 carries. If they do, they are usually on their last legs.

You only have to look at Henry’s draft class to see how a back’s career typically goes. Of the 19 running backs selected in the 2016 draft, only two remain on an active NFL roster this season: Henry and Ezekiel Elliott.

Elliott is now a shadow of his former self, floundering in Dallas’ lackluster offense. He hasn’t rushed for more than four yards since 2021, and his only career “high” during that span was taking a snap as center. Kenyan Drake, another lofty selection in the 2016 class, last played meaningful snaps in 2022. Jordan Howard, a Pro Bowler in his rookie season, last saw the field in 2022. While Henry continued to pile up rushing titles, the rest of his class was touring the UFL or brushing up on their sales skills.

Everything about his playing – his crushing style, his longevity – continues to defy conventional wisdom.

It wasn’t that long ago that running backs felt like they were going the way of New Coke. There are few positions on the field that take so much punishment. According to the data, the shelf life is about four years before a player’s body starts to crumble and production plummets.

Due to injury risks and the large number of players available, running backs are largely considered interchangeable. Over time, offensive lines and rushing schemes have proven to be more responsible for a back’s rushing production than the runner himself. That’s why teams consistently cycle through different ridges.

Franchises have voted with their wallets, with contracts for the position falling even as the salary cap increased. Eighteen months ago the state of the position was so dire that former players were lobbying youngsters to switch positions and the current crop of stars were planning to collective action.

But there is something of a renaissance going on. The top four offenses in the league this season – Washington, Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit – all feature pounding, power-based run games. Three of the four lead the way in the shakiest rushing stats, while Buffalo, the lone holdout, tops the league in using extra linemen or playing with a pulling blocker. It’s all starting to look like a Bill Cowher fever dream.

Conversely, from the top-four defenses in the league – the Vikings, Chargers, Bears and Broncos – only the Bears fall outside the top eight in run slowing. The defense is now set up to confuse quarterbacks. From chaotic rotations in the secondary to a battery of blitzThrough pressure and different ways to blur what’s happening at the line of scrimmage, defenses find solutions to slow down the passing game. The best way to compensate for the chaos is to get a grip on the ground from north to south.

If the last 10 years were approximately pace and spacethen the next pair will be about combining those ideas with a blistering run game, to take advantage of lighter, faster defensive bodies on the field or to force defenses into coverages ready to be attacked through the air. The Ravens have taken that idea to the extreme by pairing the game’s best downhill thumper with its most dynamic quarterback.

“We’ve had good offense and we’ve had a lot of games where we rushed for a lot of yards. That’s all great, but the difference Derrick Henry has made is pretty clear,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said Monday. “It’s a different type of rushing attack with him because of the way he runs the ball. He is simply one of a kind. He is one of one.”

Henry is unlikely to be a one-man trendsetter. As Harbaugh says, there is only one Derrick Henry. Teams can appreciate the running game while still cycling through different backs. But that only heightens what Henry is doing this season. The last person to break the 1,000-yard mark in his 30s was Frank Gore, and Henry is on pace to shatter his total (1,106).

A running back will probably never win MVP again. It’s difficult for even the best defensive players to join the conversation. Even on his team, Henry sits behind Jackson in the pecking order. But the MVP is a narrative award. And one of the biggest stories of this season is the resurgence of the run game. No one embodies that more than Henry, a backbone from another era who still tears apart defenses. That alone should earn him a spot on the ballots.