Derrick Henry continues his five-year streak of NFL awards
By Will Lomas
Stop me if you have heard this one before, but Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry has added another award to his Hall of Fame resume.
The NFL announced that Henry was named the AFC Player of the Week on offense for Week 8.
This comes on the heels of Derrick Henry’s performance against the Houston Texans where he tallied 219 yards and 2 touchdowns. If you missed the game, the box score doesn’t even do him justice because the Tennessee Titans were doing everything they could to keep Malik Willis from passing the ball.
With ten pass attempts in the entire game and only one pass attempt in the second half, the Houston Texans knew exactly what was coming and they still couldn’t stop it.
The defenders that had to stop him had the tough task of picking whether they wanted to get run over, run around, or pretend to tackle him so that they didn’t have to show up on the injury report this week.
Derrick Henry’s impressive streak
This is Henry’s seventh time to be named the AFC player of the week and he joins Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes as the only players to win the award in five straight seasons.
When you look at Derrick Henry compared to the rest of the NFL, Derrick Henry continues to stand head and shoulders above the rest of his generation at the running back position. Over the last three seasons, Henry has had more rushing yards than anyone else in the NFL.
The closest player to him is Jonathan Taylor who has about 300 yards fewer than Derrick Henry despite playing 7 more games over that stretch.
He is an incredible talent and even though he is idolized in Tennessee, it is hard for Titans fans to truly appreciate just how unique his career has been. Henry clearly values being looked at as one of the best players to ever play his position and every time he adds another award his case gets stronger.
Henry is a huge part of the Titans’ offense and he is equally important to Tennessee’s culture. Fans need to appreciate what they are seeing because Derrick Henry is doing rare things and he continues to make those things look easy.