Derrick Henry defying NFL running back odds is surprise to no one: Always seemed like Superman

Derrick Henry’s former teammates at Yulee High School in Florida saw it all long before the NFL did.Saw the intimidating power of a human locomotive, saw the unexpected speed, saw the pulverizing stiff-arm, saw the unbridled swagger when the game was on the line.They saw King Henry before he ascended to the throne with the Titans, and now with the Ravens as the NFL’s leading rusher — 119 carries for-704 yards, 5.9 yard average and eight touchdowns — at age 30.“I know for a fact that a lot of teams that we played, they would work on tackling the low hip and tackling the legs with Derrick and getting guys to gang tackle, getting a lot of guys to the ball,” Zac Camp told Serby Says.

“I know that was a point of emphasis for a lot of people was tackling him low and not trying to get up high where he could get a stiff arm on ya.”Camp played wide receiver with Henry at Yulee.“It’s still the same, man,” he said.“Bounce outside, he’s got one defender to beat, he gets the angle, puts his arm out and finishes the run.

And a lot of that, too, was people never realized because he’s so tall and so big, people never realized how fast he was moving.He had such a long stride that it didn’t look like he was moving that fast, but he was covering so much more ground with his stride that whenever he would get to the edge it would be deceptive sometimes, you’d think you’d have the angle on him, and he could finish runs though, too.

People never really saw that.”Brycen Gagnon played outside linebacker at Yulee High School.“I remember we had a night practice one time, and one of our safeties that was in his class as well, was a good, hard-hitting safety and thought he would meet Derrick on a toss, and the kid ended up losing his helmet because he got hit so hard,” Gagnon recalled with a laugh.Henry is the 6-foot-3, 247-pound running back Jerry Jones should have signed for the bargain price of two years, $16 million for his Cowboys.King Henry is t...