Baltimore Ravens Running Back Derrick Henry Breaks a High School Record
Sometimes, the greatest athletes aren’t just competing against the person across the line of scrimmage. They’re in a battle with ghosts. They’re chasing history, legends, and sometimes, the most fearsome opponent of all: their younger self. For Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry, it took a full decade in the NFL to finally catch the specter of his own teenage dominance.
In the Ravens’ Week 10 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, Henry churned out 75 yards. For a player of his caliber, that’s a pretty standard day at the office. But buried in that workmanlike performance was a milestone so absurd it sounds like a typo. With those yards, Henry’s career NFL rushing total climbed to 12,127 yards. Why does that matter? Because it finally pushed him past the 12,124 yards he racked up in high school.
Let that sink in. It took “King Henry,” the man who has terrorized NFL defenses for 10 years, a full 145 professional games to outrush the kid who did it in just 48 games at Yulee High School in Florida.
The Legend Of High School Henry
If you think NFL Derrick Henry is a force of nature, you should have seen the high school version. That kid was a statistical anomaly, a cheat code walking onto the field. He averaged a mind-boggling 252.6 yards per game over his four-year high school career.
During his senior season, it got even more ridiculous. He galloped for 4,261 yards and 55 touchdowns in just 13 games. That’s an average of 327.8 yards every single Friday night. It’s the stuff of folklore, the kind of numbers you put up in a video game on rookie mode.
Henry vs. Henry: A Tale Of Two Careers
This isn’t just a quirky stat; it’s a testament to how utterly transcendent Henry was before he could even vote. Ari Meirov of The 33rd Team called it an “unreal stat on so many levels,” and he’s not wrong. It highlights the sheer physical dominance of a man who was already a legend before he ever set foot on a college campus.
While his professional career has been nothing short of Hall of Fame-worthy, it’s taken him ten seasons of grinding against the best athletes on the planet to finally eclipse the numbers he posted against teenagers. It puts into perspective just how far ahead of the curve he has always been.
He’s not just chasing his own ghost, either. Henry is steadily climbing the NFL’s all-time leaderboards. In that same game, he leapfrogged Hall of Famers Thurman Thomas and Franco Harris to claim the 15th spot on the career rushing list. With a strong finish to the season, he has a legitimate shot at cracking the top 10.
It took a decade, but NFL Henry has finally defeated High School Henry. Now, with that personal demon vanquished, he can get back to what he does best: making professional defenders look like high schoolers.
