The Jacksonville Jaguars had absolutely no answer for Derrick Henry on Thursday night. The supersized running back for the Tennessee Titans bulldozed his way past a team that prides itself on defense in one of the most audacious rushing displays in N.F.L. history.
The numbers were staggering. Henry, the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner, carried the ball 17 times for 238 yards and four touchdowns in Tennessee’s 30-9 victory. It was just the 10th time since 1950 that a running back has rushed for at least 200 yards and four touchdowns, and the 6-foot-3, 247-pound Henry did it on five fewer carries than any of his predecessors while averaging an outrageous 14 yards per rush.
There were plenty of memorable moments in the game for Henry, but none topped the play midway through the second quarter in which he fought his way through several tackle attempts to match Tony Dorsett of the Dallas Cowboys for the longest touchdown run in N.F.L. history.
“Once I got in the open field it was going to take all of them,” Henry said at his postgame news conference. “I definitely wasn’t going down easy.”
Derrick Henry just treated a group of grown men like Apple updates that he keeps clicking “remind me tomorrow” on pic.twitter.com/K4iOwy8VeO — Zito (@_Zeets) December 7, 2018
Derrick Henry just treated a group of grown men like Apple updates that he keeps clicking “remind me tomorrow” on pic.twitter.com/K4iOwy8VeO
— Zito (@_Zeets) December 7, 2018
The record-tying play was set up when Tennessee stuffed Jacksonville’s Leonard Fournette at the goal line to turn the ball over on downs, giving the Titans the ball just inside Tennessee’s 1-yard line.
Henry, whose longest run of the season coming into the game was just 16 yards, broke left through the line and was met by the Pro Bowl cornerback A.J. Bouye just inside the 20-yard line. He dispatched Bouye with a vicious stiff-arm to the face, ran side-by-side with linebacker Leon Jacobs before simply whipping the pursuer to the ground, and then ran through a halfhearted tackle attempt by linebacker Myles Jack at around Jacksonville’s 20-yard line on his way into the end zone.
Repeatedly asked by reporters to sum up his feelings on his big day, Henry chose instead to talk of the stellar game-plan and execution by his team’s offensive line. He described a scene of pandemonium among his teammates on the sideline following the long run.
The Nytimes
