The Tennessee Titans remain alive in the AFC playoff hunt, and the breakout performance of Derrick Henry is giving them more life than ever.
Despite sitting at 6-6 and appearing to be in a tough spot two weeks ago, the Tennessee Titans are in the thick of the playoff hunt in the AFC. After running the Jacksonville Jaguars into the ground in Week 14, the Titans followed that effort up by blanking the New York Giants and moving to 8-6 on the season.
In the win over the Jaguars, Titans running back Derrick Henry led the way. He made headlines with his beastly 99-yard touchdown run that saw him stiff-arm defenders his entire way to the end zone. But he was also productive outside of that, taking his other 16 carries on the night for 139 yards and three additional touchdowns, totaling 238 yards and four scores on the night.
Because it was an ugly game in the rain where their defense shut out the Giants offense in Week 15, Henry’s performance on Sunday may be overlooked. However, the third-year back out Alabama was again the workhorse and again led the way to victory. He finished the game with 33 carries for 170 yards and two touchdowns.
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For those keeping track at home, Henry had 128 carries for 474 yards through his first 12 games of the year. Despite preseason talk of him being the new featured back in Tennessee, Matt LaFleur and Mike Vrabel never fully made him that until these past two weeks, and it has clearly paid dividends over the past two weeks.
There have been plenty of critics of Marcus Mariota this season, and rightfully so to a degree. Though he’s been good at times, he’s not been consistently productive, nor has he looked the part of a former No. 2 overall pick. Having said that, it’s entirely unimportant if Mariota can not turn the ball over and this offense runs through Henry.
Though the level of competition hasn’t been phenomenal, what the last two weeks have shown for the Titans is that their best course to success is giving Henry the rock, letting him run behind a good offensive line — even with Jack Conklin on IR — and control the game, which then allows an underrated defense to do their job and stay rested.
If the regular season ended after Week 15, the Titans would be out of the postseason, losing tiebreakers to the Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts, both of whom also have 8-6 records at this point. However, with the Ravens facing a tough two-game finishing stretch and the Colts eyeing a Week 17 showdown with Tennessee, the Titans are still well in the hunt.
And if Henry can continue to run at this level and carry the offense in this manner, the Titans’ chances will only look even better to get into the postseason.