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Even though Derrick Henry is running like he's back with the Alabama Crimson Tide, it's worth remembering that he is 30 years old and in his ninth NFL season. Most running backs don't last that long in this league, but Henry isn't like most running backs.
Now with the Baltimore Ravens, Henry has rushed a league-leading 134 times for 873 yards and eight touchdowns and that's only seven games in.
The NFL record for total yards in a season is held by Eric Dickerson, who ran for 2,105 yards with the Los Angeles Rams in 1984. That was in 16 games, mind you, and Henry now has 17 to play with.
“It's there,” Henry's teammate, quarterback Lamar Jackson said when asked if he believes the big running back can break the NFL's single-season rushing record, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “I feel like he has a great chance of achieving that. I think he can do it. I believe he can do it.”
The 6-foot-2, 247-pound running back is averaging a league-best 124.7 yards per game. At 16 games that would put him at roughly 1,995 yards, but with the additional 17th game, he'd check in right at 2,220 which would break Dickerson's record by 115 yards.
Henry may not even need that extra 17th game, either. He rushed for 2,027 yards with the Titans in 2020 in 16 games, putting him just under 100 yards away from Dickerson's record.
It's more than possible this is the season Henry does it, but that's not his focus right now.
“I don't really try to think about that too much,” Henry said about the record. “Just focus on me doing my job and being better and better every week. I don't really try to get into the statistics of things. I focus on the team goals.”
Henry isn't focusing on the record, but being in a place like Baltimore will certainly help him achieve it. He's got a strong offensive line in front of him and Jackson at quarterback – who is both a running and throwing threat – takes a ton of the defensive pressure away from him.
Throw in the fact that he's still a tank to take down this many seasons into his career and he's seemingly not lost any burst, and there's no reason to expect that he'll slow down.
So with that said, it's prediction time.
What will Derrick Henry's final rushing total be?
If Henry maintains his current pace of 124.7 rushing yards per game, he'll check in at 2,220, but it doesn't seem reasonable to keep that clip for the 10 remaining games.
Why is that?
For one, the Ravens still have to play the Pittsburgh Steelers twice and they have the third-best rushing defense in the league giving up just 81 yards per game on the ground. There are also three top-ten rushing defenses left on the Ravens' schedule in the Houston Texans (109.3 yards per game), Los Angeles Chargers (111.2 yards per game) and Denver Broncos (111.7 yards per game). Henry needs 1,232 yards to match Dickerson, so let's start doing the math.
Let's give the Steelers the credit they're due and say that they'll hold Henry to just 90 yards. So that's 180 yards for both games against the Steelers. Let's then also assume that the Texans, Broncos and Chargers will remain solid against the rush, but Henry is Henry, so we'll give him 100 yards in each matchup.
That's 300 yards against the Texans, Broncos and Chargers plus the 180 in the two Steelers games, which puts Henry at 480 more yards.
That would put him at 1,353 yards with five games still left to do the math on, which means he'd have to rush for 150.4 yards per game in those five games in order to match Dickerson.
That's possible for a back like Henry, but he's also facing the Cleveland Browns twice (including Week 8) and the New York Giants. Those teams won't have anything to play for and thus no reason to jump in front of him for a big tackle.
As such, let's assume that he'll get 200 yards in one of those games against the Browns (he's had 200-plus six times in his career) and he'll do it again against the Giants. In the remaining games we'll give him his current average of 124 yards per game.
So now we have our predicted numbers for the rest of the season. Somewhere out there is a mathematician who can figure this all out in their head, but for the ease of the reader let's lay it out with the remaining schedule.
Derrick Henry vs. Browns on 10/27: 200 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Broncos on 11/3: 100 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Bengals on 11/7: 124 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Steelers on 11/17: 90 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Chargers on 11/25: 100 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Eagles on 12/1: 124 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Giants on 12/15: 200 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Steelers on 12/21: 90 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Texans on 12/25: 100 yards
Derrick Henry vs. Browns on 1/5: 124 yards
This would put Henry at 2,125 yards, meaning he'll break Dickerson's record by 20 yards in Week 17.
