Derrick Henry scored just under 8 fantasy points within the first eight minutes of the game, and Ian Hartitz tweeted it out right after his first touchdown – turns out Henry was going to rush for 30 touchdowns this season, after all. After that, though, the Ravens went down in the game and were forced to play catch up all night long and Henry ended up with just ten points on the night.
The issue for Henry was the game script – the early down/short yardage running back isn’t going to get a whole lot of run in a game where you’re forced to pass the ball. There are only a handful of teams in the NFL capable of going up on the Ravens and staying there, and the Chiefs are one of them. Justice Hill out-snapped Henry 38-36 as a result, earned five more targets, and ran twice as many routes, but Henry handled 13 rush attempts to Hill’s one.
Much more often than not, the expectation should be that the Ravens will be grinding away games while playing with a lead, which lends itself to Henry seeing much more usage than what we saw in Week 1. Better days are ahead, starting with Baltimore’s Week 2 matchup against the Raiders – they’re fresh off being gashed for 135 yards on the ground by J.K. Dobbins, and the Ravens are 9.5-point favorites at home.
Throw some trade offers at the Henry manager in your league – they could be worried about the fact that Lamar ran it 14 times himself and looked really good doing it. But the ideal gameplan for the Ravens, I think is one that gets the ball to Derrick Henry in a feature role – something he didn’t have in Week 1. Capitalize on any panicking managers.