In preparation for Sunday’s AFC showdown in Nashville, the Pittsburgh Steelers defense surely watched plenty of film of last week’s Tennessee Titans victory in which Derrick Henry accumulated 264 yards from scrimmage.
The Steelers braced for the one-eighth-ton bruiser and cut his production down to 72 yards of offense.
That was a significant factor in escaping with a 27-24 victory.
“We talked about the importance of minimizing him,” coach Mike Tomlin said of Henry, who came in as the NFL’s leading rusher.
#Steelers’ reward for controlling the NFL’s top rushing team is a matchup against the league’s top individual runner, the #Titans’ Derrick Henry. https://t.co/S2y4aL5nNd
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) October 21, 2020
The Steelers limited Henry to 20 carries for 75 yards and two catches that netted minus-3 yards. It was the second-lowest production from Henry in his past 12 regular-season games dating to last year.
Of Henry’s 22 touches (20 rushes and two receptions), seven went for 0 or fewer yards, and 10 went for 1 or fewer yard (albeit one was a 1-yard touchdown run). Just four Henry touches netted more than 6 yards.
Not a bad effort from the Steelers’ No. 1-ranked rushing defense against a player who had 2,068 rushing yards over his previous 16 games (including playoffs).
“We didn’t do anything that we don’t normally do,” Tomlin said. “We played the defenses that we normally play. We’ve just got to defeat blocks and make tackles and try to prevent them from falling forward — a tall task with a guy like him, and particularly … from an attrition standpoint over the course of the game. And you felt that.”
No WR in the NFL has run faster than him with the ball this season
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) October 23, 2020
No ILB on the Steelers is bigger than him.
Derrick Henryhttps://t.co/eRFMcueKa2
More than half of Henry’s yards (40) came in the fourth quarter while Tennessee nearly completed a rally from down 20 points to tie the score in the closing seconds (when Stephen Gostkowski missed a 45-yard field goal).
“There were instances where we stopped the run,” defensive captain Cameron Heyward said, “and instances where we didn’t.”
The Steelers did limit Henry to minus-2 yards over his final four touches of the game. Last week, Henry had 22 carries for 212 yards and two catches for 52 yards in a comeback overtime win against the Houston Texans.
“We have goals so high for ourselves because we know what we can do,” linebacker T.J. Watt said after the game. “We feel like we can be truly special defense, and that’s why no one is really satisfied after today. We need to do a lot better job, especially in the second half, and it starts with the run. Even though we did a good job in the first half we need to continue and carry it over into the second half.”
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