Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry is second in the NFL in rushing yards after two games, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
That’s because he’s mostly been stifled on the ground and hasn’t broken one of his signature big runs we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. His longest carry is 14 yards and he’s averaging just 3.6 yards per carry.
The only reason Henry has managed to average 100 yards per game thus far is because of volume, as the Alabama product leads the NFL in carries (56).
Of course, his lack of big gains has a lot to do with the run-blocking upfront, which has been average at best to start the season. We also have to remember that Henry is historically a slow starter, so this really shouldn’t be surprising.
Henry isn’t worried about the lack of explosive plays. He understands the Titans must improve upon what they’ve done on the ground in the first two games and those big gains will come, per Jim Wyatt of Titans Online.
“They’ll come,” Henry said of the explosive runs. “Sometimes things like this happen during the season, where we might have a little adversity, things might not be going the way we want them to or think they should be going. But fixing things, improving, watching film and seeing things we get better at (are things we’re doing) – it’s not what really what the defense is doing, it’s what we need to do better as a whole, individually, and then collectively as a group. That’s what we are trying to do, improve … and eventually it will all come together, and we’ll get rolling the way we want to. But right now, we just have to improve on things we’re not doing so good right now.”
The Titans have a great opportunity to get the rushing attack going in Week 3. The Minnesota Vikings have allowed 154.5 rushing yards per game through the first two weeks, the fifth-most in the NFL.
