Hey Thanks, Your Majesty Derrick Henry

Hey Thanks, Your Majesty Derrick Henry,

Perhaps my gratitude should instead be directed at the 30 NFL teams who passed on Derrick Henry in the 2016 draft. Thirty general managers — 31 if you count the Titans’ Jon Robinson, who picked three other players before he took you at 45 — looked at a 6-foot-4, 250-pound Heisman Trophy-winning running back who moves like some sort of Dr. Moreauian combination of a rhino and a cheetah and said, “Nah, not gonna work in the NFL.” 

It’s what they’ve said about you all along. In middle school: “He looks like a man among boys, but he’ll never get away with it in high school.” In high school: “He looks like a man among boys, but he’ll never get away with it in the SEC.” At the University of Alabama: “He looks like a man among boys, but he’ll never get away with it in the NFL.”

And then you promptly stiff-armed the criticism like it was a foolish Buffalo Bill and scampered away from the naysayers, who chased you hopelessly like so many Jacksonville Jaguars.

The GMs and the scouts were too clever by half. They said you’d wear down because Nick Saban relied on you so much at Alabama. They ignored the fact that you look like some sort of sacred statue carved by angels. They said you were too tall, you ran too upright to succeed at the highest level. You do run upright, it’s true — right up and through 350-pound defensive linemen. They said you had trouble blocking for quarterbacks and catching passes, essential skills in the 21st-century whizbang offenses of the NFL. 

OK, so maybe you don’t have the soft hands of a lotion commercial, but you do make the passing game better. Your ability to rip off big gainers in any down and distance opens up play-action passing for Ryan Tannehill. Your propensity for wearing out defenses makes things so much easier for your offensive teammates (and gives valuable rest to your own defense).

But really, your greatest asset is that anyone can appreciate how you play. No one needs an in-depth understanding of blocking schemes or route trees or any of the subtle, cerebral parts of the game to grasp why you are good.

Big man run fast. That’s it.

There’s no need to have a Tony Romo-esque encyclopedia of football’s esoterica stashed in one’s brain to explain your greatness. A toddler’s grasp of physics is all it takes, because every 3-year-old has set up a row of blocks and crashed them down with a toy truck.

But you also offer so much more. Delightful shade — the white suit you wore to Baltimore that eerily paralleled the infamous outfit worn by Ray Lewis before Super Bowl XXXV, or the time you told the Ravens safety Earl Thomas to engage in coprophagia during a post-game interview. That was the game you not only rushed for an astounding 195 yards, but also, of all things, threw a touchdown pass. In four-plus seasons wearing two-tone blue, you already have a career’s worth of highlights (and a rushing title to boot).

Here’s to many more, Your Highness.

—J.R. Lind

Staff Writer, Nashville Scene