-
Jamison Hensley, ESPN staff editor
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Can the Baltimore Ravens working with Derrick Henry again break the NFL’s single-season speeding record?
Lamar Jackson nodded his head when he asked the question.
“It’s there,” Jackson said in Wednesday’s interview. “I feel like he has a great chance to do it. I think he can do it. I think he can do it.”
In his first season with the Ravens, Henry is having the best start to a brilliant nine-year career. With stiff fingers and explosive runs, Henry is averaging a league-best 124.7 yards in seven games.
He’s in a month for a speed of 2,120 yards, which could eclipse Eric Dickerson’s 40-year-old record. Dickerson rushed for 2,105 yards for the Rams in 1984.
“I don’t really try to think about it too much,” Henry said when asked about Dickerson’s record. “Just focus on doing my job and getting better and better every week. I don’t really try to get into the statistics of things. I focus on the team goals.”
Henry’s 873 career yards are the most in the first seven games of a season since DeMarco Murray had 913 in 2014. Murray finished with 1,845 career yards.
If Henry is in a position to decipher Dickerson’s file, he would have earned it. In Henry’s final 10 games, he will face eight run defenses that rank in the league’s governing section, including the Cleveland Browns’ 15th-ranked run defense on Sunday.
However, Henry has proven that he can defy the numbers. His 873 yards are the second-most by a player 30 or used in seven games in NFL history, trailing only Walter Payton’s 875 yards in 1984.
Henry said it doesn’t matter if his appointment caused groups to avoid hiring him at an isolated agency seven months ago.
“I went to the team I was supposed to go to and I wanted to go to,” Henry said. “I can’t worry about what people say. I do what works for Derrick Henry and I’m a Baltimore Raven. I want to do the best I can to help us win each and every week.”
It was four years ago when Henry totaled 2,027 rushing yards, falling 94 yards short of Dickerson’s mark. In his broadcast month, Henry would become the first player in NFL history to record two 2,000-yard rushing seasons.
At 6-foot-3 and 247 pounds, Henry is a major problem to sicken even for NFL defenders. However, in an interview with ESPN, NBA big name Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves stated that he believes he can play isolation protection games and believes he can take on Henry.
“He’s crazy,” a smiling Henry said of Edwards, who is 6-4 and 230 pounds. “I mean, everyone has imagination… We have to set up a training camp where basketball players come and put on these pads and see if they can really get through it.”