During his time as an AFC South rival with the Tennessee Titans, running back Derrick Henry posted four games with more than 200 rushing yards against the Houston Texans, and last season in his first appearance against Houston with the Baltimore Ravens, he ran for 147 yards in a 31-2 victory.
So even though Henry had only 42 yards on eight rushing attempts in the Ravens’ previous game, the Houston defense had stopping King Henry at the top of its to-do list for Sunday’s meeting with Baltimore.
The Texans limited Henry to 33 yards and one touchdown on 15 carries on Sunday as Houston posted a 44-10 victory.
“It meant everything,” Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. told reporters in the locker room after the game about putting the clamps on his fellow former Alabama All-American. “I think that was our biggest game plan going in, man. We stop 22, man, everybody knock back, everybody make him stop his feet and gang-tackle, man, we’re going to have the day that we want.”
Houston’s efforts to stop Henry paid off in the Texans’ first victory over the Ravens since Dec. 21, 2014.
Anderson said he felt “just joy” about the performance.
“It just comes from the preparation that we put in all week, man,” Anderson said. “It was just about us. How well were we going to go out there and stop the run? How well we’re going to go out there and execute on offense, and how well we’re going to execute on special teams. I thought we really did a really good job with that.”
After a 29-point beating in the teams’ previous meeting on Christmas last season, Houston got its first victory in nine visits to Baltimore.
“It feels great, man,” Anderson said. “I think that was like one of the biggest things, man, like having that chip on our shoulder, man. Like we got to get some get-back, man. We want to make history and be the first Texans to win (in) Baltimore, man. And it’s just a blessing that we were able to do this.”
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While the Texans won their second game in a row after an 0-3 start and have yielded the fewest points in the NFL this season, the Ravens fell to 1-4 and have given up 20 more points than any other team in the league.
“We just need to play better,” Henry told reporters in the locker room after the game. “It’s easy to finger-point when everything is going bad. We haven’t been playing good, have not been displaying a good football team, but you just got to go back to work. We still got to go into work on Monday, so as a whole, we just all have to be better. Like I said, it’s easy to finger-point, say this, say that. It’s just not good right now overall, and we need to fix it quick while we still got time. We have some guys banged up, nicked up, but it’s definitely not what we wanted to display today. …
“We’re all kind of surprised right now, what’s transpired. But who’s going to be the one that turns it around? It’s going to be us. I know it’s hard to be like, ‘We can still do it.’ But I still believe in these guys. I’m going to try to keep leading the best as I can, showing up to work, working hard, doing my job. Like I said, it’s easy to be negative. Everybody can have the ‘Poor me’s,’ and ‘Why this? Why that?’ But I’m not blaming anybody. I look at myself first and see what I need to do better, and then we all go in there as a group, as a unit, and try to fix everything and turn this thing around as quickly as possible.”
Henry’s 1-yard run in the third quarter for Baltimore’s only touchdown on Sunday was the 110th rushing TD of his NFL career, tying him with Walter Payton for fifth in league history. The only players with more rushing touchdowns than Henry are Emmitt Smith with 164, LaDainian Tomlinson with 145, Marcus Allen with 123 and Adrian Peterson with 120.
But since running for 169 yards and two touchdowns on 18 carries in a 41-40 loss to the Buffalo Bills in the season-opening game on Sept. 7, Henry has 148 yards and two touchdowns on 46 rushing attempts in four games. It’s Henry’s least-productive four-game stretch since 2018.
“It just wasn’t good enough, us as a whole,” Henry said. “It takes all of us, but I still believe we can get to where we need to be as far as in the run game to help this team, to be efficient and to make plays, because we’ve done it before. We all saw it last year. It’s just not clicking right now. We just have to find ways to make it click, and when it does go, dominate the line of scrimmage, be explosive. I got to be better. We all just got to figure it out.
“I’m not going to be negative. It’s easy to be negative, and we’ll try to be positive, encourage everybody and tell Flock Nation keep believing because we’re going to keep going to work and try to fix this thing.”
The Texans will be on their bye week in Week 6 of the NFL’s 2025 season. Houston will return to the field against the Seattle Seahawks at 9 p.m. CDT Oct. 20 at Lumen Field in Seattle in a Week 7 Monday game.
The Ravens play the Los Angeles Rams at noon Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
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