Derrick Henry: Remember The Titan

Noah Hills Posted On May 28, 2019

Derrick Henry is a 6’3″, 247-pound monster of a man, a 4.54 runner in the 40 with an 89th-percentile Burst Score, a former Heisman winner from the top college football program in the country, and a 25-year-old running back who, in his first year as a starter in the NFL, ran for over 1000 yards while posting double-digit touchdowns and a Dominator Rating equal to or greater than the career-best marks of backs like Christian McCaffrey, DeMarco Murray, Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon, and Kareem Hunt.

Henry is also going outside the top-15 running backs and top-40 selections overall in startups, making him – from a talent, career trajectory, and market value standpoint – one of the best trade target players in all of dynasty.

The Talent

As a Heisman winner, Henry was obviously one of the more dominant college running backs in recent memory. His quality production at an elite program puts him in very good company among backs drafted since 2007: word image 143 Using the averages of a player’s college team seasonal S&P+ Rating percentile ranks (a team-rating metric devised by Football Outsiders explained here: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa) to approximate the quality of the program for which they played, and limiting the player pool to runners who played on 90+ percentile teams and posted at least a 30% Dominator Rating at those elite programs, generates a list of the best-of-the-best college backs of the last decade plus.

On a list in which the only players who have never posted an RB2-quality fantasy season are Derrius Guice, Ronald Jones, Dalvin Cook, and rookie Dexter Williams, Henry is well-positioned as the rusher who played on the best team (the 2013-15 Alabama squads averaged a 98th-percentile S&P+ Rating) and posted the second-highest Dominator Rating (his 43.5% mark trails only Christian McCaffrey’s 50.7%).

Moreover, he was incredibly efficient at Alabama. The average Henry carry went for a whole yard more than the average carry by any other Rolling Tide running back, and he outperformed his teammates in 10+ yard run rate and 20+ yard run rate by marks that each rank in at least the 72nd percentile. Those numbers would be impressive if Henry had played for any Division-I team in the country, but at Alabama, playing alongside future NFL runners like TJ Yeldon, Kenyan Drake, Bo Scarbrough, and Damien Harris, they’re almost ridiculous.

Henry is even more unique as a physical talent. He, Mikel Leshoure, Jonathan Stewart, and Saquon Barkley are the only players in my database who weighed in at the Combine at more than 230 pounds, ran sub-4.60 in the 40, and produced at least a 124.0 Burst Score (an 80th-percentile mark) in the jumping drills. Essentially, if you took Ricky Williams, added three pounds from his Combine weight, made him a bit faster and a bit more explosive, you’d get the kind of size-adjusted athletic beast that Henry is.

His major weakness as a prospect was, of course, his lack of receiving ability. Despite heavy volume, Henry caught only 17 passes in college. Adjusting his collegiate receiving production for overall offensive involvement produces a 3rd-percentile Satellite Score of 8.7, indicating that pass-catching will likely never be a sizable component of Henry’s game.

The NFL Career

After a rookie season spent behind DeMarco Murray in the final year of his prime, Henry began commanding 10+ carries per game in his 2017 sophomore campaign. Last year he received 215 carries and turned them into 1059 yards and 12 touchdowns on his way to the RB14 fantasy finish in half-PPR.

His overall share of Titans offensive production in each of his first three seasons has increased, with yearly Dominator Ratings of 11.8%, 18.1%, and 30.9% respectively, from 2016-18. As mentioned above, that 2018 Rating is higher than the career-best marks of Murray, Kamara, Mixon, and Hunt, and aligns well with the kind of dominance other quality backs displayed during their respective age-24 seasons:

Impressively, as his volume has increased, so has his efficiency. In his rookie season he didn’t contribute much more than what was blocked for him, averaging 0.04 yards more per carry than other Titans backs, and underperforming his teammates in rates of 10+ and 20+ yard runs. Subsequently, he ripped off 10+ yard runs at a greater clip than his teammates in each of the last two seasons, and his carries have been worth 0.63 (2017) and 1.64 (2018) yards more than the average carry from any other Tennessee running back, for a two-year yard per carry over team rate of 1.19. For comparison, here’s a selection of other backs’ rates over the same time period:

Henry has yet to add a significant receiving dimension to his repertoire, only earning between 15 and 18 targets and catching between 11 and 15 passes in every season of his career so far.

The Trajectory

While running backs are often able to step onto an NFL field and produce right away, my research into career arcs based on Dominator Rating suggests that a player is approximately 90% of what he will be at age 21, with a spike in production at age 23 and continued gradual improvement until the average peak at 26, then a gradual decline until more severe dips at age 29, 30, and on.

Based on these historical trends, Henry’s production to this point is par for the course. His lower early-career numbers are easily explained by his playing behind another quality back in Murray, and then his first-year starter numbers compare well to other successful fantasy runners. Historical evidence suggests that we should expect Henry to continue to improve as a player and increase his share of the team’s offensive production.

What such an increase would look like is difficult to project. While Henry has said that one of his main focuses during this offseason is improving as a receiver, I’m not willing to count my eggs before they hatch in that regard at all. His Satellite Score as a prospect is the 7th-lowest in my entire database, and targets have made up just 9.1% of his total opportunities (carries plus targets) as a pro, a mark substantially lower than the database average of 23.2%. Even with marginal improvement in that area, he will likely never be more than a checkdown option in the passing game.

Given that he’s already an efficient runner in regards to his per-touch production versus other Tennessee ball-carriers, it seems the path to continued improvement is more volume. Henry saw five games last season in which he received fewer than 10 carries. By comparison, McCaffrey saw four, Kamara, James Conner, and Chris Carson each saw three, Melvin Gordon and David Johnson each saw two, and Mixon saw zero.

With Dion Lewis now 29-years old and moving ever further from the running back age apex, and with undrafted free agent rookie Alex Barnes the only other player of consequence in the backfield, an increase in volume doesn’t seem like a longshot for Henry.

An offensive coordinator change in Tennessee means all bets are off for exactly how much the Titans will run the ball going forward (though new OC Arthur Smith was an in-house promotion, so perhaps we should expect some philosophical carry-over from last season), but they’ve been top-10 in the league in rushing attempts each year since 2016. If that trend continues, then Henry should improve upon his 13.4 carries per game from last year.

That mark ranked 18th among team rushing yardage leaders from last season, behind players like Peyton Barber and 33-year old Adrian Peterson, and means that Henry received only 47.1% of all Titan rushing attempts, just the 23rd-highest share among all team rushing yardage leaders.

Considering his talent profile, his position on the running back career arc as a guy just entering his prime, and his unique physical proportions, Henry looks like a player primed to handle a much larger share of the total Tennessee rushing attack than he saw in 2018. Even a Sony Michel or Aaron Jones-sized piece of the pie (53.8% and 53.3%, respectively), assuming team rushing attempts remain stable, would see Henry receive another 30 carries over the course of next season, while a 60.2% carry share like what Barber received would mean an additional 60 carries, for a 275-carry total workload.

The Situation

Much of the concern over Henry’s production and fantasy value stems from pessimism in regards to the Titans offense as a whole. Since he’s been in Tennessee, they’ve ranked 11th, 18th, and 26th, respectively, in yards per play, and have never ranked higher than 22nd in total plays. They’ve dropped from 14th in points and 11th in yards in 2016 to 27th and 25th, respectively, last season. This has not been an efficient or prolific offense.

What’s encouraging to me is that despite being handicapped in two of the areas most important for fantasy running back success – volume and situation – Henry’s talent has been enough to propel him to quality weeks and season-long finishes. He was the RB14 while playing on a terrible offense last year, and we saw in weeks 13-16 what he’s capable of on a weekly basis.

I’ve already laid out a case for Henry to see increased volume in the years ahead. An improved situation is a trickier proposition, but I see hope on the horizon. He was the RB14 last year while playing on an anemic offense led by a revolving door of quarterbacks in Blaine Gabbert and a numb-armed Marcus Mariota, stocked with overmatched skill-position talent in key positions, from young, not-ready-yet Jonnu Smith at tight end to in-over-their-heads Taywan Taylor and Tajae Sharpe at wide receiver.

The tight end position will be helped by veteran Delanie Walker returning to the fold in 2019, and the wide receiver corps has been upgraded with the additions of steady slot man Adam Humphries and dynamic rookie AJ Brown. If Mariota is able to feel things now, the offense should improve just by virtue of having better, healthier players available. Any increase in play volume and per-play efficiency will be huge for Henry’s fantasy prospects, from both game script and workload points of view.

The Verdict

Despite failing to meet oversized fantasy expectations early on, Derrick Henry has been right on schedule as a dominant force at running back thus far in his NFL career. He’s one of the most talented players at his position in the league, and as a guy entering his prime who has already proven to be a capable producer despite the disfunction surrounding him, the trajectory for his career is pointed directly up.

Per DLF’s ADP data, Henry is currently being selected as the 42nd player off the board in dynasty 1QB startups, behind backs with worse talent profiles in similar situations like Josh Jacobs and Kerryon Johnson, as well as less efficient players in worse situations like Leonard Fournette. He’s being taken one slot ahead of annual wide receiver disappointment Sammy Watkins.

DLF’s Dynasty Trade Analyzer values Henry at 275.4, right between the values of the 2019 rookie draft 1.06 and 1.07 (in superflex leagues). If you can get him for the value of a Watkins or a Kerryon Johnson (guys he’s outperformed thus far in his career), or for the value of a David Montgomery at 1.06 – a player I like but who is entering a similar situation and who can’t touch Henry from a pure talent standpoint – I would be taking advantage of market inefficiencies and smashing accept on trade offers.

Henry is the closest thing we’ve seen to Ricky Williams since Ricky Williams. He is what we want Leonard Fournette to be. He is the premier size-explosiveness specimen we have in the NFL, and he has the production and efficiency numbers to show for it. Bet on an offensive bounceback in Tennessee. Bet on a heavier rushing attempt share. Bet on historical trends for age-based running back production. Bet on the guy with the RB2 price tag and the Jamal Lewis talent profile.