He’d already stiff-armed pro bowl safety Earl Thomas so hard he was facing in the other direction. But star Tennessee running back Derrick Henry had to push him once more as if he was supposed to be his lead blocker.

Not to mention the fact he probably heard the comments Thomas had made earlier in the week criticizing the Patriots approach to stopping Henry.

“Those guys didn’t seem to be interested in tackling him. Our mindset is a little different,” Thomas said.

Safe to say his comments got twisted in the opposite direction. 

Yet the powerful move depicted how easily he was able to eliminate the Patriots and Ravens from the playoffs. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill, up and coming wide receiver AJ Brown, and a ‘bend but don’t break’ Titans defense certainly helped, but Henry has been the unstoppable force.

And he always was.

In high school, Henry amassed 12,124 yards and 153 touchdowns in only 48 games played. If this was the NFL, four years would entail playing 68 games. 

To further put this in perspective in the 56 games Ezeikiel Elliot has played in the NFL, highly touted as one of the best running backs in the league, he only scored 48 touchdowns. The skill gap difference from the NFL to high school is obviously notable, but it shows just how extraordinary and unreal the numbers Henry put up were.

Following his prolific high school career, Henry maintained the same consistency in college. Despite not producing the jaw-dropping stats he did in high school, his college stats were just as impressive.

He totalled 3,591 yards and 45 touchdowns while winning the prestigious Heisman award in only his junior year. He then declared for the draft, and was egregiously left to be snagged by the Titans in the second round.

Scouts perception of him then has completely changed, as now he is replicating the utter dominance he exuded on the field on a game by game basis. 

In his first three years at the professional level Henry had respectable performances, somewhat justifying why the scouts didn’t have him higher up the rankings. Regardless, his role in the Titans offense has dramatically expanded, as currently he is their heartbeat.

The common theme of the past three Titans game has been evident to the rest of the league. Give the ball to Henry early and often, and force the defense to try and stop it. The Texans, Patriots, and Ravens, all with elite playoff caliber defenses tried to do so with no avail.

The only thing that remained once the dust settled was that Henry had become the first player in NFL history to run for 185+ yards for three straight games. Along with that he became the first to rush for 175+ yards in back-to-back postseason games.

The Chiefs defenders will do their best to not be placed in an embarrassing situation like Earl Thomas’s as they vye for a Super Bowl spot against the Titans in Sunday’s AFC championship game.