Gene Frenette: Titans RB Derrick Henry, the Yulee bulldozer, on track for Hall of Fame career

Back in 2011 and ‘12, when college recruiters came at him for inside information in waves, then-Yulee High football coach Bobby Ramsay told all of them it’d be foolhardy to consider moving his superstar running back to another position just because he was frighteningly big.

Luckily, Derrick Henry — all 6-foot-3 and 247 pounds of him — hasn’t budged.

The most prolific back in prep football history, who capped his college career at Alabama with a Heisman Trophy, and now through eight NFL seasons with the Tennessee Titans owns two NFL rushing titles, continues to validate that carrying the ball will always be his best avenue to impact a game.

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“Those who worked closest with him in high school, it would have been surprising to us if he didn’t do well [at running back],” said Ramsay, now the head coach at Impact Christian.

“The Tom Luginbills of the world who were pounding the table back then that he’s not a running back, it almost took on a life of its own,” added Ramsay, referring to the scouting and recruiting analyst now employed by The Athletic. “I’m glad that mentality didn’t win.”

Less than two months shy of his 30th birthday, King Henry is still running toward running back royalty.

When Henry faces his NFL hometown Jacksonville Jaguars team in a Titans uniform for the 14th time Sunday at EverBank Stadium, it’ll be another step toward a quest that might bring him the ultimate form of football immortality: a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

By no means is Henry there yet, but if he can stay healthy another three to five years, he’s certainly tracking to become the fifth Jacksonville area high school product — along with Bob Hayes, Harold Carmichael, Brian Dawkins and LeRoy Butler — to be enshrined in Canton.

Jaguars linebacker Foye Oluokun, who played against Henry twice last year and once with the Atlanta Falcons, was matter-of-fact in assessing his HOF candidacy.

“I don’t know why he wouldn’t be when it’s all said and done,” said Oluokun. “You go back and watch how he’s won games for his team. I don’t know why he wouldn’t be a Hall of Famer.”

Among the 16 HOF-eligible backs who won multiple NFL rushing titles, only Byron "Whizzer" White — he only played three seasons and became an associate justice of the Supreme Court — isn't enshrined in Canton.

Facing uncertain future

The consensus among those who have closely followed Henry’s pro career and have Hall of Fame votes is his chances of being elected will depend heavily on how much he adds to his resume in his 30s.

Henry, who stands 39th on the NFL all-time list with 8,960 yards and is tied for 18th at 82 rushing touchdowns, has stayed relatively healthy his entire career. Except for the foot injury that sidelined him for the last nine games in 2021, likely costing him a third consecutive league rushing title, Henry is always ready to take a pounding and administer it.

Though not all Hall of Fame candidacies for running backs are created equal, the belief is Henry still has significant work to do to ensure a place in Canton.

“When he gets to 10,000 yards, he will be in the discussion,” said longtime Dallas-based NFL writer Rick Gosselin, the statistical gatekeeper for Hall of Fame numbers. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years with the running back position being devalued. Look at how much market [New England Patriots backup] Ezekiel Elliott had last year [as a free agent] and he couldn’t get work.”

Henry, who is a free agent after this season, will be an interesting litmus test in that regard. His future with Tennessee is murky at best.

Does Titans second-year GM Ran Carthon try to keep the face of their franchise around for another 300-carry season? Will Henry even want to stay in Nashville or look for a better fit elsewhere, perhaps a Super Bowl contender?

“I think Henry needs to get in the 12,000 [yards] range,” said Hall of Fame voter John McClain, the retired Houston Chronicle beat writer for the Houston Texans and now host of several podcasts. “He’s got to keep doing stuff to set him apart.

“If I’m him, I’d want to get away from that [Titans’] offensive line. I want to go somewhere where they run the ball and have an offensive line.”

Depending on how much Henry is used in the coming seasons, it’s not inconceivable that he could climb into the top-10 among all-time rushers, where Tony Dorsett occupies the 10th spot with 12,739 yards.

Former Jaguars’ running back Fred Taylor (11,695 yards) is 17th on the list and has the most yards of any HOF-eligible back not enshrined in Canton.

Henry is currently second in the NFL with 625 rushing yards, projecting to 1,181 yards at his current pace. His 4.2-yards-per-carry average is a half-yard behind his career mark, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of a load Henry’s next employer will ask him to carry.

“Nobody is going to make a 30-year-old running back the centerpiece of their offense,” said Gosselin. “I see so many running backs fall off the cliff when they hit 30.”

Durability a key factor

Only eight running backs have eclipsed 3,000 yards in their 30s, led by Frank Gore, who played until age 37 and accumulated 6,033 yards after turning 30. He stands third on the all-time rushing list with 16,000 yards and becomes HOF-eligible in 2026.

Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton, the top two all-time rushers, played until age 35 and 34, respectively. Smith had 4,492 yards after 30 and Payton 3,417 yards. Both were still getting 250-300 carries per season well into their 30s, but that was in a more run-centric NFL era.

The question for Henry becomes whether the Titans or another franchise are willing to give him that kind of load for two or three more years, which would help the Yulee bulldozer accumulate the yardage necessary to build a strong HOF case.

Bob Sutton, the Jaguars’ senior defensive assistant who has coached in the NFL since 2000 for four different teams, thinks Henry can be the focal point for a team’s offense at least a couple more years.

“Physically, he’s probably the most unique player I’ve ever seen at that position,” said Sutton. “There’s been guys that have been big and fast, like Fred Taylor, but Fred is still 20 pounds less than Derrick. Besides that one year with the foot [injury], for a guy who carries the ball as much as he does, Derrick’s been durable.

“His track record would say yes, that he can still carry it 300 times. I don’t see any indication that he’s slowing down.”

Tony Dungy, a Hall of Fame coach and NFL analyst for NBC, wonders if Henry wouldn’t be better off leaving the Titans for a Super Bowl contender to help his HOF case.

“If he goes and becomes part of an offense that could get to the Super Bowl, like Christian McCaffrey did with San Francisco [49ers], that could be a difference-maker,” Dungy said. “Where could being a cog in a Super Bowl team be? I don’t know.

“People getting to see that talent on a big stage, maybe something like that does it. I would have loved to see Derrick Henry in an offense where you didn’t just have to stop him. Imagine what he would have done in a Peyton Manning offense.”

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Henry saves best for AFC South

Only three Hall of Fame running backs with a minimum 1,500 attempts — Jim Brown, Barry Sanders and Joe Perry — averaged more than Henry’s 4.72 yards per carry for their career. The only other HOF back to have at least a 4.5-yard average is O.J. Simpson, though Adrian Peterson at 4.6 yards is considered a mortal lock for the Canton Class of 2027.

Even if Henry’s yard-per-carry average dips as most backs do after age 30, his current number speaks to his remarkable consistency, which is made even greater considering he’s the focal point of opponents’ defensive game plans.

The Titans have never had a quarterback or any weapons outside of former receiver A.J. Brown, now with the Philadelphia Eagles, to minimize the burden on Henry.

“It’s not the style of football anymore to go into a game and take a running back away,” said Dungy. “In the last 15 years, you could stop Adrian Peterson and still not win the game. But you stop Derrick Henry, you stop the Titans.

“Derrick is clearly the only guy in the league where you go in thinking that if you stop him, you win the game. You might have to go all the way back to Barry Sanders to find someone like that.”

Nobody has game-planned more for Henry than his three AFC South rivals — the Jaguars, Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans. If anybody has insider knowledge to try and limit Henry’s impact, it’d probably be opponents that see him on a frequent basis.

But over a 39-game sample size in Henry’s career, that hasn’t been the case. He produces at a considerably higher level going against division foes, averaging 115 yards per game and 5.5 yards per carry. That’s 35 yards more per game, and eight-tenths of a yard per carry above his career averages in those categories.

The Titans are 24-15 in games against AFC South opponents when Henry is in the lineup. In his last eight games against the Jaguars, he has 180 carries for 1,100 yards (6.1 per carry) and 13 touchdowns.

“It tells you in those big division games you have to win, how much the Titans rely on him and how much he’s come through for them,” said Dungy.

Looking at Henry’s game tape, Jaguars safety Andre Cisco doesn’t see a back in decline.

“A guy like that, he’s working through all four quarters,” said Cisco. “Some guys kind of lighten up through the game, but Henry goes hard. I don’t watch him on film and say, ‘Oh, he’s taking a step back.’ That’s definitely not what I see.”

Ramsay insists the player he coached at Yulee will play as long as his body allows, but doesn’t put a timetable on how many seasons that might be.

“He’s definitely at a crossroads,” said Ramsay. “He’s going to have to play the game a little differently and probably play at a different place. I don’t think he’s going to play if he’s a shell of himself and he’s not going to keep coming back for the money.”

Henry came back from his foot injury to rush for 1,538 yards last season, finishing behind only the Las Vegas Raiders’ Josh Jacobs (1,653 yards). He’s finishing up a four-contract extension of $50.5 million, signed in 2020, that pays him $10.5 million this season.

Whether he stays with the Titans or goes elsewhere, there’s no debate about how the all-time prep rushing leader (Henry broke Ken Hall's 59-year-old record by running for 12,124 yards) wants to look once his NFL career is over.

It’d be fitting to see him wearing a gold jacket on a Canton stage because his excellence has been evident at every level. Henry could join Dorsett as the only football player to ever be Parade Magazine national Player of the Year, a Heisman Trophy recipient and Pro Football Hall of Fame member.

More than a decade after some people wondered if he was too big to be a running back, Derrick Lamar Henry, Jr. is still running toward greatness.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette  

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Hall of Fame dinosaur? Yulee's Derrick Henry on a run for immortality