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Peter Schrager
NFL Insider & NFL Reporter
Every week, FOX Sports NFL reporter Peter Schrager opens his notebook and opines on three of the biggest storylines around the league. Here’s my takes heading into Week 7.
1. Derrick Henry The Difference Maker
A lot of folks in NFL circles rolled their eyes when Derrick Henry signed with the Ravens in March. We’d seen this story before. Aging veteran enters final year of free agency, his longtime team curiously doesn’t make much of an effort to bring him back, and then he signs with great fanfare somewhere else. Whether this was Ezekiel Elliott as a Patriot, Emmitt Smith as a Cardinal, Marshawn Lynch as a Raider, or Adrian Peterson as a Saint — the story usually goes the same. A bunch of jerseys sold, a lot of fantasy football chatter, and then an injury, a younger guy fills in, and ultimately a fizzle to the end of that era. Umm…Derrick Henry didn’t get the memo. At 30 years old, he is having his best year as a pro. He has touchdowns in all six games, has over 700 rushing yards, and more than anything, is providing something the Ravens have so desperately needed since the start of the Lamar Jackson Era: a closer.
The knock on the Ravens, dating back to Jackson’s first MVP season in 2019, is that they can’t put games away, and in the ones that matter most, have no hammer to ice games. They had the league’s best-rushing attack of all time in that ’19 campaign, but the run game was nonexistent in their playoff loss to Henry’s Tennessee Titans. Last year, the running game vanished in their AFC Championship Game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Baltimore opted to only hand the ball off to running backs eight times in that game and the questions loomed all offseason as to whether Henry would actually serve as a plug to that hole, or if it was just another high-priced aging running back addition that the league has seen a million times before.
Henry’s been outstanding…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/schragers-cheat-sheet-derrick-henry-saquon-barkley
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Publish date : 2024-10-15 17:42:53
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