When will Derrick Henry start looking like El Tractorcito?
By Brady Akins
When Will Derrick Henry Emerge in 2020
If my calculations are correct, we should see Derrick Henry start to assert himself as the league’s best running back on…
October 18, 2020. Week 6 of the NFL regular season, in the Titans’ first match against the division-rival Houston Texans. There are a couple of reasons for this, the date wasn’t pulled out of a hat.
Following the trail of Henry’s last breakout game, and taking into account who Henry will be facing in the following weeks as well as what the Texans’ defense has looked like in 2020– one could easily make a case for Week 6 is the game where Henry finally breaks out again.
In 2018, it took until Week 12 for Henry to start playing at a high level, against a fairly average Jacksonville Jaguars run defense. In 2019, as Henry developed as a player, Week 10 served as his true coming-out party, when he ran like crazy against a basement-dwelling Kansas City Chiefs defense. In 2020, Henry, while still young and not yet overworked, will keep getting better as a player, and in theory, should need less time to start running over bad run defenses.
Week 3 has the potential to be a big game for Henry, but with Weeks 4 and 5 representing games against strong Bills and Steelers defenses, there’s a chance that, even with a good showing against Minnesota, that Henry could regress.
But towards the bottom of the totem pole, a team that allowed the most yards to a single runner in Week 1 and gave up over 200 rushing yards as a team in Week 2, the Houston Texans– the Tennessee Titans Week 6 opponent.
Week 6 could mark Derrick Henry’s seemingly inevitable 2020 breakout, and if it does, it will be a much-needed facelift for the Tennessee Titans offense.