NFL PLAYOFFS: Derrick Henry joins Eddie George and Earl Campbell in the record books

Derrick Henry has been getting more and more touches for the Tennessee Titans as the season has gone by. The result has been a diminishing role for Demarco Murray, net wins for the Titans, and Henry taking his place among the Shield’s elite backs.

On Saturday night, with the Titans trailing 21-3 to the Kansas City Chiefs, Henry started doing Henry things in a furious and improbable 22-21 Titans comeback win. It’s being called “one of the all-time worst losses” (no, Atlanta, yours is still worse,) for a franchise that chokes games like Admiral Motti, and it was marred by bad officiating. But, at the end of the day, it’s up to Andy Reid to scheme a way to score in the second half (they didn’t) and the defenders in Arrowhead to tackle the big sum’bitch in powder blue (they couldn’t.) Henry’s Heisman fraternity brother, Marcus Mariota, had a great little game too: The 2014 Heisman Winner threw a touchdown pass to himself and had the block that sprung Henry’s game-clenching run.

That 35-yard touchdown run was clocked at 25.31 mph, the third fastest speed by an NFL back this year...Henry’s close to 6’4” and pushes 245 pounds, folks.

Henry’s 25 touches generated 191 yards for Tennessee, putting him in elite company:

Earl Campbell, Eddie George, Derrick Henry huh? That’s some damned fine company for the second-year running back and former Heisman Trophy winner from the Crimson Tide. And he joins Eddie George as the only back in franchise history with a 150+ yard rushing game in the playoffs. @But ‘Bama players are busts, Pawwwwl@

Matt Hinton said it best in a tweet that elicited from me as much of a chuckle as it did a sigh of reminiscence:

Congratulations to Henry who helped fuel the first Titans playoff win in 15 years, and hopefully Nick Saban will pin this write-up to Brian Daboll’s office door tomorrow morning to both inspire him, and remind him, don’t be “that guy.”

RTDB, folks. It’s just good practice.

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As for the above-mentioned Atlanta Falcons? Despite Steve Sarkisian being the most inept person to ever call a game with a treasure trove worth of talent in front of him, he finally remembered in the waning moments of last night’s Rams-Falcons game that there’s a pretty good player named Julio Jones. You may want to give that guy the ball to secure a win.