Pure Speculation - Is Derrick Henry on the Move?

Franchise running back is the least important position in football, Henry was a non factor yesterday and Lewis definitely helped us win with some big plays especially in crunch time. But I’m sure there will be games where Henry will a bigger factor than Lewis, there’s nothing wrong with a running back by committee system.

 

I said it yesterday, 3rd and 1, Henry isn't on the field. No different than last seasons coaching staff, new staff also don't trust him to use his size to battle for that 1 yard. Hope he improves because we need him.

 

Henry is comparable to Barber. Pretty accurate.

 

The Eagles have a good rushing D but haven't really faced any good rushing teams to this point.

Henry wasn't good, he almost lost the Titans the game with a -5 yard run and fumble.

He's averaging less than 3YPC between the tackles this year and half of his 24 yards came on one run to the edge, which was his only good play of the game because he could get moving and didn't get punished for having zero acceleration and ability to make a cut.

The guy is trash and doesnt have NFL talent.

 

I've said this over and over again.



Henry is not a good size for a running back. I have posted historical data, given various examples, and etc showing that he is too big to be a good NFL RB. People continue to bang away that his size is a positive. It's not. There are plenty big fast guys but they go play WR, TE, LB, and etc because they know they're too big for an NFL RB. The position requires incredible center of gravity, balance, vision, burst, quickness, and etc. All these things are extremely hard to have to the NFL standard when you are as big as Henry. Not only that, holes in the NFL tend to be small. The bigger you are the harder it is to hit all of them.



There was a great article by Jonathan Bales on this very website tackling that issue. Here is a picture from that article:



"Now, look at height. Remember that the correlations showed that height might not matter too much for running backs, but what we really see is that the bottom 75 percent of running backs in terms of height perform right around the same in terms of efficiency. Meanwhile, the top 25 percent - the tallest quarter of running backs - have rushed for fewer than 4.0 YPC since 2000. That’s horrific.



To me, this is clear evidence that height doesn’t matter all that much for running backs … to a point. And that point is right around 73 inches, or 6’1”."


Stop spinning Henry's height as a positive. It's not. Every historical point of data points to it being a negative and is a large factor in his inability to be a good NFL player. He is also too heavy as indicated by the chart.

 

This does frustrate me. Lower your damn shoulder and run through the guy. He'll do it to Ramsey, but that's about it.

That said, he wasn't the issues yesterday. He was more effective on the ground than Lewis was. They've just played 3 very top level front 7's 3 weeks in a row. So I'm not surprised the running game has been so poor.

 

That's not how it works. This only works in the open field and that's why he is so dangerous in space. The problem is, 99% of the runs are not in the open field. Good luck trucking a guy going at 5 MPH especially when you lack elite balance. In almost every single run, you have 5 guys around you at any given time.



3 YPC is terrible I don't care who your coach is or how bad your line is. Henry can be successful in fantasy in the right scheme (much like Blount was) and this is not it.

 

Die on the Henry Hill for all I care.

The only difference in his production from last year to this year is he hasn't popped a 70-yard run. He's a 3.__YPC runner on the vast majority of his carries.

Whether the problem is Henry or the line, giving it to him is a waste of a down because he can't make anything happen. He doesn't fit what we can do offensively.

Lewis needs to get the majority of the snaps.

 

Henry's problem is acceleration. He doesn't get to a trucking speed level until 2 yards pass the LOS. When he was at Alabama their were MASSIVE holes so he had time to accelerate. NFL wise he just needs to find a way to hit that hole so we can keep feeding him. By his own admission he has mentioned he hasn't played well so at least he's not blind to his performance.

 

I agree