How Did Derrick Henry Last Until the 2nd round

Iggloo said:

The guy won the Heisman, looks like The Hulk and Groot had a baby, runs a 4.5, yet went 45th overall in the draft. How does this happen? I mean, the analysis of Derrick Henry's NFL upside is hardly difficult--"Big man fast. Give man rock. Man runs hard." NFL talent evaluation is fascinating.

"Former Michigan State defensive coordinator Harlan Barnett, whose team faced Henry in the 2015 college football playoffs described it this way: “You get tired of hitting that big back,” he said. “Boom. Again. Here he comes again. Boom. Again and again and again. And so you have to have the mental toughness to be able to say: ‘Hold on. We’re going to hold up, and we’re going to keep smacking him. Keep hitting him.’”

That’s if you can get your hands on him. Compounding his weightiness and his speed — 4.5 seconds in the 40-meter dash — is his ability to cutback and make defenders miss in space. And as if those traits weren’t enough to deal with, there is his long stride. At 6-foot-3, he literally eat up the yard lines like his legs are hungry for dirt.

Someone at Alabama once measured that stride. In full lope, Henry covers 7.5 feet per step. Think about that for a second: That’s two and half yards per stride. It’s 10 yards in just four steps. “If we can get him into his fourth or fifth step, we feel very confident in his ability and our ability to gain meaningful yards,” Vrabel said. And once he breaks a tackle, he’s gone. On 23 occasions this season he's burst upfield for 15 yards or longer, most in the league.

“He doesn’t get caught much,” Patriots Coach Bill Belichick observed."


Finally, there is Henry’s capacity for a daunting workload. He’s carried the ball 96 times in his past three games, a scarcely believable rate in this era of balance offense. But for him, it’s normal. Back in high school in Yulee, Florida, he regularly carried 40 or more times a game, and the trend continued at Alabama.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...14d9e8-38ba-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html



NFL Draft 2016: The 44 players somehow chosen before Derrick Henry

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eaglesnut said:

What's more crazy is it took the Titans 4 years to actually use him.

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Hank Kingsley said:

I like Rodgers. What's not to like?

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BigFin said:

He and Drake were in the same Bama backfield. That's nuts

I also thought Dalvin Cook was better than Henry that year.

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jerseyhawksfan79 said:

He's a jackass

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kburjr said:

Not to say that Henry is not on a hot streak and the Titans should ride him as much as they can, but Henry has been in the league for 4 seasons now and has less than 4,000 yards rushing. Not exactly superstar stats.

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NFL-Solomon said:

So, … you are saying they should drug test him for PEDs?

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Hank Kingsley said:

So what? I don't care what he does off field. Or says. I'll take him over most any QB currently playing.

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Diego Roll Tide said:

Cook was a great back, but Henry was underrated that year (yes, even given the Heisman) due to the belief he was running behind a great line. That OL was not good until the latter part of the season. Early on they were just plain bad.

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Sharkonabicycle said:

HA, Derrick WHO!? The Seahawks wisely drafted Germain Ifedi in 2016 who is one of the best right tackles in NFL history! In FACT, if you research it properly Ifedi is the b-

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SteelersPride said:

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SteelersPride said:

That was why they had demarco Murray and signed dion Lewis to split arrows and to be lead back? Interesting

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Diego Roll Tide said:

This if oft repeated, but a flat out myth.

Henry was not the starter until his 3rd year at Bama, and even then people look at a couple of games (AU and UF) when he had 40+ carries and assume it was the norm. It wasn’t. Hell, we felt like he was highly UNDERutilized in college.

Ditto for the Titans. He only became the featured back last year. And while he certainly is capable of bruising, he manages to avoid the brunt of a lot of shots because he uses his speed and stiff-arm.

BTW, for those talking about his lack of receptions at Bama, that was the Kiffin offense. He rarely threw to backs. The exception was using Kenyan Drake lined up
wide.

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shopson67 said:

602 carries at Alabama over 3 years. 804 w/ the Titans thus far. He's 20th in the league in active career carries after only 4 seasons, only 2 of which he was the starter. He led the league this year with 303. He had 395 his final year at Alabama.

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shopson67 said:

No, that's why he emerged more this year and became more of a factor. Dion Lewis is a change of pace back, something any former Patriot head coach is going to want on his team from seeing what that does for an offense first hand. Demarco was a veteran to bring along the kid to some extent (and showed some question in whether Henry would be the answer or not).

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SteelersPride said:

ou dont sign a veteran to bring along a RB. RB is the most plug and play transition from college to pros there is. Henry was a 2nd round pick, you dont draft a question mark RB in the second round. You draft him thinking hes the guy. Obviously good for him, hes corrected himself. But there were reasons he wasnt getting the rock, and others were there. You really think they drafted him high, and just thought" were dumb, were not gonna use him".

Even this year, the first 9 weeks, he was good, not great.....what happened there? they just decided to use him more week 10 on?

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