As required and as expected star running back Derrick Henry reported to the Titans mandatory Mini-Camp Tuesday in Nashville.
Henry chose to skip the voluntary portion of the Titans off-season program to work on his own. That was not out of any kind of contractual protest, but he says simply building off of past success, “In 2020 whenever Covid hit we had to train by ourselves and I really enjoyed that, I got to go work out when I wanted to whether it was twice a day or three times a day… Last year I did the same thing so I felt like if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”
Size has always been one of the things that separates Henry from other backs and he certainly looks as big or even bigger after his workouts this Spring. Henry has posted his usual instagram videos of his amazing and sometimes bizarre workout routine and says the foot that he broke during last season is “fine”. He was asked every way possible how the foot is and he was incredulous when he repeated “fine” over and over.
As for a new contract, Henry did not say he was after one, but did not brush off the idea of getting a new one, “It’s always good to get a promotion at our job… If that’s what the future holds then, yeah, that would be great.”
Henry has two years remaining on his first current contract that will pay him $12-million and $12.5-million in base salary the next two years.
Contract, foot, playoff loss, those were not the topics Henry sounded ready to address. The big one he was waiting for? His hair. Henry showed up with his long hair flowing from the back of his helmet instead of tightly wound up in the tail that he we have seen for years.
“I wore it down with the pony tail and everybody was going crazy,” Henry said, “I might switch it up this year. You never know, stay tuned.”
Yeah, his muscles are big, but the interest in his long locks seemed to be even bigger Tuesday which probably goes to show no one sounds very concerned about what they will see from Henry this season.