Terrell Davis didn’t need long to settle the Derrick Henry debate.
When FanSided’s Sterling Holmes asked the Hall of Fame running back which current backs belong in Canton, Davis went straight to the Ravens star. That answer tracks with the way Baltimore fans have come to view Henry: as the kind of back who just keeps coming, keeps piling up yards and keeps looking like the same force he was years ago.
“Derrick Henry is to me the obvious choice. I look at his yards, and the dude has just been piling up.
The fact that he had a 2,000-yard season and then had a 1,900-yard season. The size, the speed, the combination of the two...”
Davis was speaking while appearing on behalf of his partnership with Teva Pharmaceuticals to raise awareness around tardive dyskinesia, but once Henry came up, the praise took over.
What Davis latched onto was the part of Henry’s game that has always made him different from the rest of the top backs in football. He doesn’t live on receptions.
He doesn’t need a catch-and-run package to round out his value. He runs the ball, and that’s the whole point.
“It’s not like he’s a pass catcher. There’s no supplementing what he does. He’s a pure runner ... and in this day in age to be able to do that and still compile those yards, at the level he’s doing it, it’s incredible.”
That’s the cleanest explanation for Henry’s place in the league right now. Players such as Christian McCaffrey, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs bring major value through the passing game.
Henry operates differently. He has gone over 20 receptions in a season just twice, and that hasn’t slowed him down one bit.
The numbers tell the story on their own: 13,000 rushing yards in 10 seasons, including 1,595 yards last season at age 31.
And there’s another layer to why he feels so hard to deal with. When Henry is on the field, defenses know exactly what’s coming in broad terms - the ball is likely going to him on the ground.
That kind of predictability usually makes life easier for the defense. With Henry, it doesn’t.
Davis compared it to the kind of precision Peyton Manning used to have at the line, the sort that could make even a defense hearing the call in advance powerless to stop it. Henry, Davis argued, belongs in that same category of obvious-but-unavoidable.
That’s the whole case in a nutshell. Defenses know what Henry is there to do. They just still can’t stop him.
He is inevitable. And Davis made it clear he sees a Hall of Fame career already stamped in place.
In Other News...
Zay Flowers Just Raised The Stakes For Baltimores Next Big Decision
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For Baltimore, the news is hard to ignore because it sharpens the next big question around Zay Flowers and the value the Ravens place on their own young playmaker. Teams do not hand out these decisions casually, and when a rival locks in a receiver with Addisons profile, it only adds to the urgency elsewhere in the league for front offices weighing how much to invest in their own breakout pass catchers. The Ravens are still in the part of the calendar where those choices are about projection and trust, and Flowers remains right in the middle of that conversation. [Read more 🡒]
Lamar Jackson Just Got Another Reason To Silence NFL Doubters
Lamar Jackson remains one of the leagues most closely watched quarterbacks, even if the outside conversation around him has shifted in recent seasons. His rushing volume has dropped sharply from the earliest years of his career, but he still showed plenty of passing efficiency in 2024, and the Ravens continue to view him as the engine of everything they want to do on offense.
A recent ranking from NFL coaches and executives placed Jackson among the top quarterbacks again, even with a slight slide from the previous year, which is the kind of reminder that his standing is still very much elite. The bigger question for Baltimore is what comes next after an injury-marred 2025 campaign, because with a healthy offseason and a new offensive coordinator, there is a real sense that Jackson could have another chance to answer the league's lingering doubts in 2026. [Read more 🡒]
Ravens May Have Found The Passing Game Spark They Desperately Needed
Jesse Minter is settling into his new role as Ravens head coach, and one of the early training camp storylines has been rookie wide receiver Ja'Kobi Lane. The third-round pick has flashed the kind of burst that can change the feel of an offense, and Minter has already singled him out as a key playmaker. For a Baltimore passing game that finished 27th last season, any receiver capable of stretching the field and creating easy separation is going to draw attention quickly.
Lanes early momentum matters because the Ravens are looking for more than just another camp standout. They need someone who can help make the passing game more dangerous and less predictable, and the rookies explosive plays have given them a reason to believe that answer might already be in the building. Training camp is still young, but Lane has done enough to make his presence felt, and the next step is proving those flashes can carry over once the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]