The Tennessee Titans are heading into Week 4 at 0-3, and the matchup with the Baltimore Ravens carries a little extra weight for one simple reason: Derrick Henry is on the other sideline.
This will be the first time Henry faces the Titans since leaving after the 2023 season and signing with Baltimore in free agency. And before the game, Jamison Hensley of ESPN asked Henry about how that move came together. Henry’s answer made the situation even clearer.
“Nah, they shook me out... I wouldn't say it like that; it's always love.
But no, they didn't offer. Not at all,” Henry said of the Titans' free-agent interest.
Asked how that felt, Henry called it “Bittersweet.”
Henry said he could see where things were headed during the 2023 season, saying the “writing was on the wall” and that the Titans were “ready to move on.” Even with that sense of what was coming, he still said it stung that Tennessee never even put a contract on the table.
That’s the part that lands hardest here. Henry wasn’t just another veteran leaving in free agency.
He was a franchise centerpiece, the kind of player who defines an era. From 2016 to 2023 with Tennessee, he piled up 9,502 rushing yards and 90 touchdowns.
His 2020 season, when he ran for 2,027 yards, stands among the great rushing years in NFL history.
He followed that with a 1,167-yard, 12-touchdown season in 2023 before leaving for Baltimore at age 30. Since then, he’s kept rolling. Henry has put up 1,921 yards and 16 touchdowns, then 1,595 yards and 16 touchdowns, and through three games this year he already has 301 yards and six touchdowns.
Even at 32, Henry remains one of the league’s best backs. And that makes Tennessee’s decision not to offer him a deal look even tougher in hindsight, especially with the Titans in need of help at running back as Cam Ward develops.
At the time, the running back market was already being squeezed, but that doesn’t change the reality Henry laid out: the Titans never even tried to bring him back.
Now he’s thriving in Baltimore, while Tennessee is sitting at the bottom of the league.
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Two Memphis Powers Just Changed A Tennessee Football Debate
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Derrick Henry Just Reopened A Titans Debate Fans Never Wanted
Derrick Henrys move to Baltimore has only sharpened the conversation around what Tennessee lost when the franchise and its longtime star went in different directions. Henry has opened the 2024 season with 301 rushing yards and six touchdowns for the Ravens, a reminder that even after leaving Nashville, he still looks capable of carrying an offense the way he did for so many seasons with the Titans.
Now he is set to see Tennessee for the first time since signing with Baltimore, and the matchup arrives with an awkward layer of unfinished business. Henry recently said the Titans did not offer him a contract when he reached free agency, a detail that brings the old debate back into focus for fans who never wanted to revisit it in the first place. His Week 4 return will do exactly that. [Read more 🡒]