Entering the Week Nine matchup on Thursday Night Football against the Tennessee Titans, much of the talk regarding the Pittsburgh Steelers and the matchup at Acrisure Stadium seems to be revolving around the first look at Titans’ rookie quarterback Will Levis coming off of his four-touchdown NFL debut in Week Eight.
For head coach Mike Tomlin, the emphasis remains on the known commodity that is star running back and potential future Hall of Famer, Derrick Henry.
Sitting down with Steelers.com’s Bob Pompeani Wednesday for his Keys to the Game segment for the team’s website, Tomlin emphasized the importance of slowing down Henry in a major way, not letting the big, bruising, game-changing running back control the game.
“You just don’t want that guy [Henry] controlling the game. You don’t want the game going through him, very similar to when we play Cleveland, you’re trying to minimize Nick Chubb and how the game goes through him. We gotta do a good job of, of staying after him, but we also gotta do a good job of minimizing our exposure to him and that’s possessing the football,” Tomlin stated to Pompeani, according to video via Steelers.com. “If we do a good job of stopping ’em, then maybe we tee up an opportunity to minimize some of the supplementary things that they do when they get him going.
“Then also the chunks come in via the play pass to D-Hop [DeAndre Hopkins] and others. And so, he is central to this game, whether or not his unit is on the field or not.”
Coming into Thursday’s matchup, Henry has rushed for 526 yards and three touchdowns on 120 carries on the season, averaging 4.4 yards per carry. He’s had two 100-yard games this season, including the 101-yard performance against the Falcons on Sunday. In his career, Henry has rushed for 8,861 yards and 81 touchdowns on 1,870 carries, averaging 4.7 yards per tote.
As a team, the Titans are averaging 115.9 yards per game on the ground, good for 13th in the NFL.
The Steelers, on the other hand, are allowing 137.1 yards per game on the ground, which is sixth-worst in the NFL to this point.
Though he’s been a dominant force throughout his career and put up some absurd numbers, the Steelers have done a good job in recent matchups of keeping him bottled up.
According to numbers researched by Steelers Depot’s own Jonathan Heitritter, Henry has been held to 75 yards or less on the ground in the last two meetings with the Steelers. In a 40-17 Steelers win in 2017, Henry received just seven carries for 32 yards. Then, in 2020, against the Steelers in a 27-24 Steelers win, Henry ran for 75 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.
Henry missed the Steelers-Titans matchup in 2021 at then-Heinz Field.
He’ll be playing on Thursday night and will go against a run defense that has struggled mightily this season, though the Steelers might be getting star defensive lineman Cameron Heyward back. Though all the focus is on Levis right now thanks to his impressive debut, this Titans offense still runs through Henry.
Tomlin and the Steelers know that. They’re going to do everything they can to slow him down. Taking the “Henry factor” out of the matchup and not allowing him to control the game will be key for the Steelers on Thursday night.
