The Titans came into their Sunday game against the Chiefs without a first-drive touchdown in any of their last eight games, which led the league in opening-drive futility. There were three ways for head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Todd Downing to reverse that curse:
1. Face the Chiefs’ awful defense;
2. Run a bunch of no-huddle to keep the Chiefs in base (which isn’t any better than their sub-packages). and
3. Have Derrick Henry, who was already playing at an MVP pace this season, throw a five-yard touchdown pass to tight end MyCole Pruitt — on National Tight Ends Day, no less!
Derrick Henry throws the first TE TD on #NationalTightEndsDay!
📺: #KCvsTEN on CBS
📱: NFL app pic.twitter.com/sIZT9kWCtf— NFL (@NFL) October 24, 2021
There was some… interesting discussion this week in come quarters as to whether you’d rather have Henry or Patrick Mahomes on your team. Well, it’s a quarterback-driven league, and Mahomes is Mahomes, but if Henry can do this kind of stuff… maybe we might have to re-think how we view positional value. Because you can argue all you want that running backs don’t matter. The Titans would tell you otherwise, and they would be absolutely correct.
It’s also not the first touchdown pass Henry has thrown in his career — there was this three-yarder to Corey Davis in the 2019 playoffs against the Ravens.
Long live the jump pass, and long live Derrick Henry.
