Derrick Henry saw his name being mentioned during the previous offseason in relation to the Dallas Cowboys following the release of Ezekiel Elliott, but nothing came of it. Henry stayed in Tennessee and Tony Pollard was the starting back, but a year can change a lot.
The storyline surrounding Dallas finally makes sense because the team is only average in the run game this season—ranking 15th with 113.5 yards per—and because Pollard and Henry are free agents.
Henry should be the Cowboys’ top priority this offseason, according to former Dallas defensive lineman and current TV analyst Marcus Spears, given the team’s struggles running the football, particularly in the red zone.
Spears stated on NFL Live, “Jerry said he’s all in, there was a need for a physical back, there were red zone issues last year.” “The Dallas Cowboys should give Derrick Henry top priority. This should be your decision if you want to be a physical, running football team with a big, physical back in the red area who can dictate what other teams must do on defense in order to stop you.
“The Dallas Cowboys should give Derrick Henry top priority if they want to go all in and have a chance to win a championship.”
Though signing Henry would go against the Cowboys’ belief that they should not sign a running back older than 28 years old, Henry still has some tread left on his tires.
Henry is thirty years old, so one could assume that his career is coming to an end. However, this season, he ran for 1,168 yards and twelve touchdowns for the Titans. In his final game of the season, he ran for 153 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Look, lots of tread.
In addition, Henry’s body is technically “fresher” this season because he only had 280 carries as opposed to 349 last year, but he still exceeded 100 rushing yards four times and mixed in totals of 80, 97, and 88.
In addition, Henry scored multiple touchdowns on the ground in three straight games. and only experienced back-to-back touchdown-free games once during the entire season. To put things in perspective, Pollard had streaks of eight and four games in which he failed to rush for a touchdown.
However, the financial aspect of this move might be what convinces Jerry Jones to approve of it. The idea of Henry joining The Star becomes even more plausible given that his market value, according to spotrac.com, is a tasty $4.3 million APY. However, we find it difficult to imagine Jerry Jones signing Pollard to a $12 million franchise tag.
Although Henry’s average rushing yards per game has decreased each season (to 68.6 this year, the lowest since 2018), it still seems possible to sign him for a single season and “go all in.”
Although Henry has been connected to the Cowboys for the past few seasons, this move feels at least somewhat more “right.” Dallas is more likely to draft a Pollard replacement than to sign a high-profile player, as CowboysSI.com has already reported. However, since Jerry made his “all-in” pledge, what now?
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