Eddie George Helped Steer Derrick Henry to Big Things

Titans' career rushing leader recalls a 2018 conversation he had with the NFL rushing champion

Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports

It has been 16 years since Eddie George played a game for the Tennessee Titans, yet he remains a significant factor in their run game.

The franchise’s all-time leading rusher appeared on the Jim Rome Show on Friday and recalled a conversation he had with Derrick Henry a little more than a year ago.

Henry reached out to George following Tennessee’s following a 20-19 loss to the L.A. Chargers on Oct 21, 2018. Henry had just run for 33 yards on 12 carries in that game, which was played in London. At that point in the season (seven games), he had 273 yards on 84 carries and did not have a run longer than 14 yards.

“I was at the game in London, I was watching it and I saw some plays, specifically in the second quarter, where he kind of turned down a linebacker in the hole and he was taken down easy,” George said. “He called me the following week and he said, ‘Hey, what do you see?’

“I told him, ‘Man, you’re too big to be running as soft as you are,’ and, ‘Use your size to your advantage. You know, you can hit the home run. You’re designed to hit the home run, but you’ve got to be able to be consistent between the tackles, take defenders on and use your size to your advantage.’

“And, my God, he has just been on fire.”

In 24 regular season games since then, Henry has rushed for 2,326 yards, which accounts for 60.1 percent of his career total (62 games). He has rushed for 100 yards or more eight times and has produced two of the top five single-game performances in franchise history (238 yards against Jacksonville in 2018 and 211 against Houston in 2019).

He led the NFL in rushing this season with a career-high 1,540 yards and had at least one run of 20 yards or more in eight of 15 games. Plus, there was his postseason franchise-record 182 rushing yards on 34 carries in last Saturday’s victory at New England.

“I’m doing my job,” he said this week. “… We’ve just got to trust in what we have installed and go out there and execute.”

The same way he trusted to what George – and possibly a few others – told him.

“Kudos to Derrick for reaching out, to not just myself but to Chris Johnson, to other legends of the game, other players just to get a full insight on what they see so he can maximize his potential,” George said.

“… You’ve got to be able to impose your will on the next player. That’s the words I used for him, ‘Impose your will, every chance you get and understand that they don’t want to see you the third, the fourth quarter. They certainly don’t want to see you later in the year, especially now when everybody’s tired, the defenses are tired.’ He’s just picking up a head of steam right now.”