After an underwhelming final season with the Tennessee Titans, Derrick Henry signed with the Baltimore Ravens last year and registered the most efficient season of his career. Now 31 years old, the end is undoubtedly near. But is it here yet? Should fantasy football managers once again be willing to invest a second-round pick in the King?
Derrick Henry Fantasy Outlook
The 2016 running back draft class gave us two elite guys and a handful of others who had moments of fantasy relevance. Henry is the only one still in the NFL.
We’ve known for years that Henry is not a normal human. He is built different. Therefore, his lasting longer and still being able to perform at a high level into his 30s shouldn’t be that surprising. With that said, Henry doesn’t have much time left. The question for fantasy managers is whether the last year of elite Henry was 2024.
Henry has a ton of mileage on him. His 2,355 career carries lead all active running backs. He’s led the league in carries for four of the past six seasons. The only two he didn’t get there came in 2021 when he broke his foot halfway through the season while leading the league in carries, and last year, when he came in second to Saquon Barkley’s historic season.
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Henry just carried the ball 325 times for 1,921 yards and 16 touchdowns at 30 years old. Showing the impact a quality offense can have, Henry averaged a career-best 5.9 yards per carry, up 1.7 from his final year in Tennessee. His 19.8 fantasy points per game and overall RB4 finish were both the second-highest marks of his career.
I don’t know who needs to see this today, but here’s every Derrick Henry touchdown from his first season in a Baltimore Ravens uniform! pic.twitter.com/jERcNC4T8Q
— Nic Mason (@British_Raven19) May 22, 2025
One of the “criticisms” of Henry over the years, if you want to even call it that, is how reliant he’s been on volume and touchdowns. In previous years (read: pre-2023), a younger, less-experienced me faded Henry because I overweighted receiving work as compared to touchdowns.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve adopted a new mantra in fantasy, which is one based on data and evidence: touchdowns are everything in fantasy football. In many instances, touchdowns are difficult to project. That is not the case with Henry.
Since taking over as the Titans’ lead back in 2018, Henry has scored double-digit touchdowns every season. The argument against Henry last was based on his scoring only 12 touchdowns in 2023. What happens if he does that again? My counterargument was that there was no way a healthy Henry didn’t get to at least 15 touchdowns on the same team that Gus Edwards scored 13 times on the previous year. He scored 18 times last year.
Make no mistake about it, though, Henry is reliant on touchdowns. If he scores 12 times this year, he will be a bust relative to average draft position (ADP). A staggering 85% of Henry’s fantasy production came from rushing last season, the highest percentage in the league. To return value at his RB6 ADP, Henry will have to do it again…and I think he can.
The Ravens have basically the same offense they had last season. Things do change quickly in the NFL, but the Ravens have been a top offense every year of Lamar Jackson’s career. They will run the offense the same way, and John Harbaugh does not like using Jackson around the goal line. Henry had 20 carries from inside the five-yard line last season. Jackson had…wait for it…one. Henry is going to score in bunches once again. He is my RB7, and I would gladly draft him in the early-second round.
Cameron Sheath’s Derrick Henry Fantasy Projection
Derrick Henry is as much of a sure thing as you could ask for in fantasy. The veteran running back continues to elude Father Time and, at 31 years old, is still one of the league’s best running backs.Â
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That isn’t projected to change in 2025, after the player’s move to the Baltimore Ravens paid immediate dividends last season. Henry produced the second-most rushing yards and rushing touchdowns of his career and was rewarded with a two-year contract extension in May.
The Ravens’ offense remains mostly unchanged this year, with the team likely to dominate in the run game once more. Last year, Henry had just five weekly finishes outside of the RB1 range, highlighting his consistency. His eight weeks with over 120 rushing yards, meanwhile, showcased his everlasting explosiveness.
Henry is unlikely to get the targets necessary to be the RB1 overall in full-PPR, but that didn’t stop him from finishing as the RB4 in the format last season. However, his targets did tick up slightly towards the end of the year, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see an improvement in that area in 2025. Overall, Henry’s ADP of RB5 feels like his floor, with the potential for top-three numbers at the position this time around.
