Derrick Henry Kicked the Ravens Hard in the Dick, and the Titans Look Scary as Fuck

Running backs aren’t supposed to be this good or this important to a team’s success. In an era of football where running back production can seemingly be conjured out of thin air from reserves on the bench, in which legitimate stars at the position like Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley have failed to do enough to lift their moribund teams to greater heights, it was easy to think that league rushing leader Derrick Henry would be no exception.

Sure, the Titans got a spark of life after starting former Dolphin Ryan Tannehill midway through the season, and got hot at the right time to make the 6 seed in the AFC. And one could even be forgiven for thinking that the most noise this team could produce was the sound of ungrateful Patriots fans booing their team after a 20-13 win in Foxboro.

Going into last night’s game in Baltimore, I was convinced that presumptive MVP Lamar Jackson was going to ensure that the Ravens lasted at least another week. That a thrilling tilt against either the Texans or Chiefs in the state of Maryland was assured.

Except … Big Dick Derrick happened.

For the third straight game going back to Week 17, this tank of a man rushed for at least 180 yards (he had 195 last night on 30 carries), and looked like a high schooler playing against pee-wee players, helping to send the Ravens packing 28-12.

On seemingly every play, Henry was a lock to get six or seven yards against a stout Ravens line. In open space, Henry trucked through the likes of future Hall of Famer Earl Thomas, and seemingly dragged two or three Ravens with him each carry before going down. Midway though the third quarter at Tennesee’s 24 yard line, Henry ripped off a 66-yard run that would’ve been a touchdown were it not for Marcus Peters getting lodged in his grill.

Oh, and he also threw a fucking touchdown to Corey Davis.

He’s also doing shit that just doesn’t seem possible anymore by players at his position. Henry has put up the most rushing yards in the past two games that any running back has in history (377). Over the first four postseason starts of his career, Henry has 561 on the ground. Again, no other running back has done this. The closest analog we might have to how valuable Henry has been to the Titans is Terrell Davis from the late 90’s Broncos.

Perhaps the most impressive indicator of Henry’s smothering dominance was how little the rest of the Titans offense had to contribute to choke the life out of the Ravens. Tannehill, who went the full calendar month of December throwing for at least 180 yards and 2 TDs per game, finished the game 7-14 passing for 88 yards and 2 TDs, with an extra 13 yards rushing and a TD on the ground. You read that correctly. More than half of those yards came from a 45-yard dime to Kalif Raymond less than a minute into the second quarter. This is the second playoff game that Tannehill has ever played, the second playoff game in which Tannehill has thrown for less than 100 yards and completed less than 10 passes, and it hasn’t hurt the Titans in the slightest.

Speaking of the Titans receivers, only Derrick Henry and Jonnu Smith had more than a single reception this game. Both of them had two (one of Smith’s receptions was a ridiculous one-handed score). And outside of the aforementioned Raymond touchdown, no receiver finished with more than 15 yards.

Granted, it’s hard to know how much of this success is contingent on the Titans getting incredible field positioning in the past two games. They consistently had short fields in the wild card against a limp-wristed Patriots offense, which, sure, that seemed like a game they could win. The Ravens, on the other hand, were supposed to be an offensive dynamo.

Yet, the Ravens seemed incapable of putting together drives and keeping the ball out of the hands of Titans defenders. A Marc Andrews tipped ball in the red zone during the Raven’s first possession went the other way in Kevin Byard’s hands for 30 yards, with a Lamar Jackson penalty adding an extra 15. The Ravens failed to convert of 4th down all three times they attempted to this game – they were 8-for-8 in the regular season. And despite Jackson accounting for 508 total yards of offense and pulling off a few breathtaking scrambles on the ground, he had to throw it 59 times, made only 31 completions, and didn’t find the end zone until a garbage time Hayden Hurst touchdown made the game look closer than it should have; at one point, the Ravens were down by 22 points, which was the first time that happened since they lost to the Browns in Week 4.

While I have faith that an offense led by Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson is likely to make next week’s AFC Championship Game closer than this, I’m not sure either is thrilled by the prospect of facing a red hot Titans team. Should the Titans win next week, they’d be only the fifth team after the 1985 Patriots, 2005 Steelers, 2007 Giants and 2010 Packers to win three road playoff games en route to the Super Bowl. Three of those four eventually won it all. This Titans team also has shades of the 2011 Giants – both were 9-7 squads that, in the divisional round, knocked off the top seed in the conference quarterbacked by the presumptive MVP in resounding fashion (That team also ended up winning the Super Bowl).

I’ve ragged on how boring the Titans normally seem on here and in the Discord before. Not anymore. This unit is legit. Derrick Henry is playing out of his goddamn mind and is setting a new bar for what is possible from running backs in the playoffs. I am genuinely terrified by what this team looks like if the rest of their offense can come to life. But maybe it doesn’t need to. And that should terrify the remaining playoff contenders.