NASHVILLE – Derrick Henry, the man who ran the Tennessee Titans to the AFC championship game two years ago, is ready to play again.
The 28-year-old star running back said his surgically repaired right foot, fixed with a steel plate, feels no different than his left, and he’s happy to be back on a football field.
Just in time for this week’s home game against the Cincinnati Bengals in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs – as long as the Titans make the final step and move Henry from injured reserve to the active roster by Friday afternoon. He returned to practice on Jan. 5 but did not play in Tennessee’s regular-season finale four days later, and as the AFC’s top-seeded team for the postseason, the Titans were off during this past weekend’s wild-card round.
Henry talking to reporters Wednesday for the first time since breaking his foot Oct. 31 in an overtime road win against the Indianapolis Colts sure seems a strong indicator the league’s offensive player of the year for the 2020 season will be back in time for kickoff at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday at Nissan Stadium.
So will he play against the Bengals?
“See how this week goes,” Henry said, “and we’ll see where I’m at on Saturday.”
He called the extent of his injury, which cost him the final nine games of the regular season, “definitely shocking,” though Henry simply turned his attention to surgery and working his way back to the field. The NFL’s 2019 and 2020 rushing champion was leading the league again at the time he was injured, and Henry still finished the season ninth with 937 yards.
Henry rushed for more than 2,000 yards in the 2020 season after running for 1,500-plus in 2019 and reaching 1,000 for the first time as an NFL player the season before that.
“It was the first time that I got injured during the season and had to miss, you know, the rest of the season, so it was definitely different …,” said Henry, the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Alabama and a second-round pick for the Titans in 2016. “Just glad that I was able to get through it and had my support system and happy to be back.”
He thanked the Titans’ trainers, his girlfriend for getting him to the team headquarters for physical therapy for the five weeks he couldn’t drive, the teammates who stayed in constant touch and the fans who wrote him letters.
Henry said the only difference now between his feet is the steel plate that remains in his right. Asked about rust from being out, Henry said he’s doing everything he can to be ready for kickoff with the work on the practice field.
He will be monitored when he does return, a big difference for someone used to a heavy workload. The 6-foot-3, 247-pounder had 303 carries in the 2019 regular season with 83 more in three playoff games, and he followed with 378 rushes in the 2020 regular season.
“Injuries happen,” Henry said, “and you’ve just got to keep pushing forward … I don’t try to get into all the what ifs and this and that, just focus on the right now and appreciate the journey. And that’s all I can do.”
The Titans practiced in shoulder pads Tuesday, and linebacker Jayon Brown and defensive lineman Larrell Murchison came over during one individual drill to give Henry a couple of defenders to thud up against and run through.
“Definitely felt good,” said Henry, who said he was the Titans’ biggest fan during his recovery.
Coach Mike Vrabel’s team didn’t radically change its approach, replacing Henry with D’Onta Foreman and Dontrell Hilliard, who helped Tennessee finish the regular season ranked fifth in the NFL in rushing. Henry has averaged 111.7 rushing yards in six career playoff games, however, and even though he played in just eight games during the most recent regular season, his 10 touchdown runs led the team.
The Bengals ranked fifth defending the run during the regular season, and they know Henry takes his biggest toll on opponents in the fourth quarter.
“You’ve got to want to tackle him just as much as he wants to run it,” Cincinnati defensive tackle D.J. Reader said. “He wants to get in that end zone, so you’ve really got to want to tackle him. I think that’s all tackling is anyway, effort and really wanting to and fundamentals. It’s something you’ve been doing since you were a kid; it’s just a bigger person.”
A bigger person with fresh legs, too.
Said Henry: “I would think anybody who hasn’t played in two months feels pretty good about their body.”