Baltimore Ravens RB Derrick Henry turned the dreaded 30 years old in January and, for the first time in his career, is not wearing a Tennessee Titans jersey. Under normal circumstances, an older running back changing teams would be reason for pessimism, but The King is anything but “normal.”
Expectations are high due to the potency of the offense Henry is joining, but Father Time is undefeated and at least needs to be considered in this fantasy football evaluation.
Should You Draft Derrick Henry in 2024?
The San Francisco 49ers were a six-win team. Jarvis Landry failed to clear 1,000 yards but led the NFL in receptions. Carson Wentz was a top-five quarterback in both passing touchdowns and passer rating.
Don’t mind me, I’m just familiarizing myself with the last time that Henry failed to reach double figures in the rushing touchdown department. He hasn’t missed more than a single game in seven of his eight NFL seasons and has reached at least 14 total touchdowns in four of his past five seasons.
The concerns around Henry have always been the same — he doesn’t catch enough passes. While that may be true, the scoring has been a floor elevator in the way that most backs rely on targets.
That said, Henry has caught 81.4% of his targets over the past three seasons. So while I’m not putting 50-catch expectations on him, who’s to say he can’t top 33 for the first time in his career as a focal piece of Todd Monken’s offense?
This Derrick Henry stiff arm 😳 pic.twitter.com/3DIYqILjNz
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) January 8, 2023
There are also some concerns out there that Lamar Jackson’s athleticism could cut into Henry’s bottom line. I’ll listen to the train of thought that 100 rushing yards per game is unlikely — despite Henry having been in that range in four straight seasons before 2023 — but Jackson doesn’t profile as a threat the way Josh Allen or Jalen Hurts are in terms of rushing scoring equity.
Henry offers a very high floor, which puts him inside my top 10 at the position, making him a buy at his current ADP (just outside of the top 10 with an ADP at the end of Round 3).
In early drafts, managers are selecting De’Von Achane and Josh Jacobs ahead of Henry. That’s a tough sell for me, with both the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers likely to rely on the pass to move the ball, resulting in a mean outcome lower than that of Henry in my rankings.
A career-low 4.2 yards per carry in 2023 is on my radar, but so is the fact that Henry’s snap-to-carry count was the highest among qualifiers in the league. The Titans were essentially showing their hand the second The King stepped onto the field, and without an impactful pass game, I’d call 4.2 a win!
Go ahead and chase some unknown upside of Achane or hope to catch lightning in a bottle with Jacobs repeating his 2022 campaign. I’ll sit here and happily take my elevated floor in the early rounds, opting to take my shots at upside in the middle portion of the draft.
Derek Tate’s Fantasy Insights on Derrick Henry
One common question for an aging veteran who recently turned 30 is how much more does this player have left in the tank? Despite the greatness we’ve seen from Henry during his NFL career, he’s not immune to this line of thinking.
On the surface, Henry’s RB8 overall finish in 2023 could be seen as a huge success considering the lack of talent along the offensive line and the inconsistent quarterback play he endured throughout the vast majority of the season.
Henry still did Henry things with 1,167 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns while appearing in every game last year. But if you look a bit closer, one may start to wonder if Father Time is starting to tap the former Alabama Crimson Tide product on the shoulder.
Henry’s 4.17 yards per carry in 2023 was a career low. His yards after contact per attempt (2.0) were just a tenth of a yard behind Christian McCaffrey last season, but his yards-before-contact-per-attempt mark (2.1) is a bit noteworthy compared to his positional counterparts.
Henry’s struggles in this department could certainly speak to the struggles of the offensive line in Tennessee last year. Yet, he enters a Baltimore backfield this season that has finished as a top-five rushing offense in the league for five consecutive years.
After J.K. Dobbins suffered a season-ending injury during their season opener against the Houston Texans, Gus Edwards managed to run for over 800 yards and 13 rushing TDs as the Raven’s leading ball carrier, which was good for an RB25 overall finish in PPR formats.
No disrespect to Edwards, but Henry could certainly produce those types of numbers in a vastly improved situation from last season. If anything, this perhaps sets a very reasonable floor for Henry’s fantasy production heading into 2024.