Baltimore Ravens Running Back Derrick Henry Benched Late Against New England Patriots
On “Sunday Night Football,” with the Baltimore Ravens clinging to a lead and their playoff lives, Head Coach John Harbaugh did the football equivalent of buying a Ferrari and deciding to take the bus to the race track. The NFL’s most terrifying closer, Derrick Henry, was watching from the sidelines during the most critical moments of the game.
A Dominant Night Wasted
Let’s set the stage. Lamar Jackson was out for the second half with a back injury. The game plan should have been simple enough to write on a napkin: Give the ball to Henry.
And for a while, it worked. Henry was running like a man possessed. He had racked up 128 yards on 18 carries and found the end zone twice. The Patriots defense looked like they wanted absolutely no part of tackling him. He was averaging over 7 yards a carry. He was the hot hand. He was the engine. He was the reason Baltimore had a 24-21 lead.
The Rotation That Killed the Momentum
Then, things got weird. With nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and Baltimore holding that narrow three-point lead, the offense took the field to ice the game. This is “King Henry” time. This is why you sign a guy who is arguably the greatest closer in modern NFL history. You hand him the rock, he grinds the clock, and you go home with a W.
Instead, Baltimore rolled out Keaton Mitchell.
Mitchell is a fine player, but putting him in over Henry in that spot feels like bringing a knife to a gunfight. The drive stalled after just 13 yards. Baltimore punted. The Patriots marched down, scored, and took the lead.
But wait, it gets worse. With two minutes left and the season on the line, the Ravens got the ball back. Surely, now is the time for Henry, right? Wrong. Henry stayed on the bench again. The result? A Zay Flowers fumble two plays later, and game is over.
Harbaugh Admits the Mistake
To his credit, John Harbaugh didn’t dodge the question after the game. He admitted that, in hindsight, the “rotation” got in the way of common sense.
“I don’t like the drive at all,” Harbaugh said regarding that critical fourth-quarter possession. “Looking back, would I rather have had Derrick starting the drive? Yes. But Derrick was kind of ready for Keaton to start that drive. And then he was planning on coming in next. So, they were working that rotation.”
It is a brutal explanation for Ravens fans to swallow. You don’t lose playoff games because of a predetermined spreadsheet rotation; you lose them because your best players aren’t on the field.
Henry, ever the professional, took the high road. He didn’t throw a helmet or call out the staff. “We have a lot of good players, so everybody has to get their touches,” Henry said. “Keaton is deserving of it.”
The Ravens are now staring down a nightmare scenario where they miss the postseason entirely. If they do, they’ll have all offseason to wonder why, when the game was on the line, their King was sitting on the throne instead of ruling the field.
