While most have agreed seemed to have tipped Christian McCaffrey to be the runaway winner for this year’s Running Back 1 spot, don’t sleep on the brilliance of Derrick Henry too soon.

For any fantasy players, who are just starting, my only advice would be to be open to options and Derrick Henry is far more than just an option this year. Since being picked by Tennessee in 2016, he has transformed into a talismanic figure for the team and strapping the Titans on his back and bulldozed through opponents 

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Player Bio: 

Born in Florida, he started playing as a running back for the high school football team Yulee Hornets. In four years at Yulee, he averaged more than 250 yards a game and never rushed for fewer than 100 yards in a game.

Later, Henry attended and played college football for the University of Alabama from 2013 to 2015. After a record-breaking junior season, Henry declared for the 2016 NFL Draft.

Henry was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the second round (45th overall) of the 2016 NFL Draft.  

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Exploits in NFL:

While Henry didn’t become a starter in his early years and Titan, he had to wait for opportunities. 

However, Henry’s fortune change during Week 14 of the 2018 season in the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  In the second quarter, Henry had a 99-yard touchdown run, fending off three tacklers, recording the joint longest NFL touchdown run.  

He finished the game with four rushing touchdowns and 238 rushing yards on 17 carries, breaking Chris Johnson’s franchise record of 228 yards in 2009.

He also became the ninth player in NFL history to record a 200+ yard and 4+ touchdown game, and the first to do so on fewer than 22 carries.

The Titans and all the NFL faithful knew that they were witnessing a special player here.

Come the regular season in 2019, Henry took the NFL rushing title with a career-high 1,540 yards to go along with 16 rushing touchdowns. Meanwhile, in the playoffs, he ran past the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens, recording an incredible 182 yards and 195 yards respectively.

He was finally stopped by Kansas City, who would go on to become the eventual champions.

If people thought that was all he had to offer, Henry silenced his critics with his last season’s performance rushing for a monstrous 2,027 yards with 17 rushing touchdowns while averaging an eye-popping 126.7 yards per game.

Since the start of the 2019 season, the Titans running back has 2,758 yards after contact, almost 1,000 more than any other back in that span.

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Expectations from the new season: 

Every season in the NFL, Henry has improved, and it’s directly related to his promotion to full-time starter in 2018. In 2021, he shows no signs of slowing down or being slowed down, which could make the struggle for his crown this season exciting to watch. Now, Titans opponents must care for Julio Jones as well.

Even this season, Henry is guaranteed to have a heavy workload after getting nearly 25 carries per game in 2020.