Should we expect a regression from Derrick Henry?
Yahoo Sports' Matt Harmon and The Late-Round Podcast's JJ Zachariason discuss if we should expect a regression year for Titans RB Derrick Henry. Subscribe to the Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Video Transcript
JJ ZACHARIASON: My question with Derrick Henry is, how does he perform with Tennessee's likely regression that's coming, right? So, the offense last year, look, Derrick [INAUDIBLE] last year. But in the regular season, the Titans scored a touchdown on 87% of their red zone trips when Ryan Tannehill took over. So that was Week 7 through Week 17. They also ended up ranking second best in touchdown per drive. But they were eighth in total score per drive, which tells me that a lot of their drives were resulting in touchdowns at a pretty unsustainable rate.
And look. Let's be honest. Derrick Henry's fantasy season turned around when Ryan Tannehill became starter. You know, I don't think that Derrick Henry was obsolete towards the end of last season and he didn't matter. But, Ryan Tannehill helped Derrick Henry in some way. At 15.1 PPR points per game, without Ryan Tannehill. That jumped up by 8 and 1/2 points with Ryan Tannehill.
So, you know, I'm looking at this. And here's another fun stat that Rich Rebar-- our mutual friend, Rich Rebar-- told me one day and my mind was blown. But Derrick Henry has never had a performance of an RB2 or better performance in weekly scoring without a touchdown.
- Yeah. I mean-- but that makes sense, because there's no receiving workload there.
- That's the problem, though. That's part of their problem, right? Is that you're then banking on that. And you need those touchdowns. And look. They should come to Derrick Henry at a higher rate than other players. You know, touchdown variation and touchdown regression is a very real thing. But players are put in certain situations and players are just naturally better and more efficient. And Derrick Henry is going to be able to score at a higher rate than a normal running back.
But I worry about all that regression coming from the Titans offense. How many-- you know, how often is he going to be in those positions to score, at least compared to last season? That's my worry with Derrick Henry.
MATT HARMON: Is there ever a situation where you're taking Derrick Henry at his cost this year?
- I mean, there could be. I think it's a lot easier, you know, it's a lot easier to do that in a standard league, for sure. You know, where you don't have to worry about that receiving as much. But no. I mean, he's just kind of in that range where, you know, I'd rather probably go wide receiver, you know, maybe I'm going Michael Thomas or even Davante Adams.
It's just there's a lot of competition there. That's the main reason why I'm just not really drafting him heavily. But look, guys. I'm warning you. I've said that the last couple of years. I've been rather consistently with Derrick. I love him as a player, of course. You can't not like Derrick as a player. From a fantasy asset standpoint, I've always been wrong about Derrick. [INAUDIBLE] take that with a grain of salt.