Henry's Admiration for Peterson Goes Back a Long Way

Derrick Henry loves to talk about other elite running backs.

He tabbed Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook the best in the league. A few weeks ago, he raved about the Cleveland Browns backfield duo of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Titans running back was asked about Detroit Lions running back Adrian Peterson, one of the best running backs in NFL history who will surely be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame when his long career reaches a close.

Henry couldn’t help but smile when he talked about the one-time MVP, four-time All-Pro, seven-time Pro Bowler who is currently fifth all-time in rushing yards in league history. Peterson, Henry said, was one of the stars he loved to watch most as a young football hopeful and an emerging star at the University of Alabama, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 2015.

“I think every kid was a fan of Adrian Peterson,” Henry said. “I know I was coming up out of high school, middle school, even in college.

“... Big AP fan. The longevity of his career is amazing. To keep being able to have production by what he is doing. He is a future Hall of Famer. Everyone was a big fan of AP.”

Now in his 14th NFL season, Peterson is not the electric runner he once was. This season, in a backup role, Peterson has amassed 139 carries for 508 yards and six touchdowns while playing in all 14 of the Lions games. He has not ran for more than 100 yards yet this season.

In his prime, though, Peterson took over games and carried his teams.

The seventh overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, he spent his first 10 seasons with the Minnesota Vikings. He ran for more than 900 yards in nine of those seasons and led the league in rushing three times, most recently in 2015, his penultimate season with the Vikings, when he registered 1,485 yards on the ground.

Since 2016, Peterson has trudged on with the Arizona Cardinals and New Orleans Saints (2017) and Washington (2018, 2019). His latest 1,000-yard season was 2018.

Henry said he can look to any season or game in which Peterson touched defenses and won his team games. Most amazing of all, though, is Peterson’s 2012 season, when he became the seventh running back in NFL history to join the 2,000-yard club. The dominance came one season after he sustained a devastating ACL and MCL tears.

“... The biggest one is when he came back from that ACL injury and went for 2,000 and won MVP,” Henry said. “There’s not many people that can do that. That mindset of him coming back and tearing the league up, that speaks volumes of the player he is and how he approaches the game.”

Nobody has rushed for 2,000 yards or more since Peterson did it. This season, Henry has a chance. He currently leads the league with 1,532 yards.

“That’s a great milestone. Not many have done it (rushed for 2,000 yards),” Henry said. “The backs that have done it, I am sure they would give a lot of thanks to their teammates, offensive line, all the guys blocking. Couldn’t have done it without them. Coaching staff. It takes everyone.”

Henry has already reached many milestones this season. Among a long list of other things, Henry became the first player in league history to have four games with 200-plus yards and two touchdowns on Sunday in a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. He is the first running back to have two 200-yard performances in a single season since former Miami Dolphins running back Jay Ajayi had three in 2016. Only four other running backs have one such performance since the start of 2018.

This weekend, though, Henry will savor the chance he has to compete against one of his idols for the second time in his career and most likely the final time as it's uncertain how many more seasons Peterson has left in him.

“I don’t think there’s nobody like Adrian Peterson,” Henry said. “I think when you say generational talent, I think that he’s the perfect running back or player to use that term with.”