Where will fantasy football go in 2021 after Derrick Henry’s injury?
Week 8 was a mixed bag for the RotoViz-style teams, with D’Andre Swift finally getting caught up in garbage time that got too out of hand, and some of our favorite receivers posting mediocre lines. The good was still very good. T.J. Hockenson exploded back to relevance, A.J. Brown re-established himself as a top-five WR, and James Conner scored two more touchdowns. In 2021 it’s been death, taxes, and Conner finding the end zone.
Zero RB options continue to score in bunches. If you started Boston Scott or Jordan Howard, you were ecstatic to have so many points out of your RB2. This one wasn’t as clear as last week’s D’Ernest Johnson start, as Kenny Gainwell managers can attest.
But the biggest storyline was the Derrick Henry injury.
Henry’s seven-game start didn’t compare to Priest Holmes in 2002 (34.3 PPG) or Marshall Faulk in 2000 (33.6), but it’s fair to say that he was dominating the fantasy landscape with an almost five-point lead on Austin Ekeler, who had also played one less game. From the end of the Holmes-Faulk-LaDainian Tomlinson era to the rise of the uber-back, we didn’t see any fast starts of quite this caliber. They’ve cropped up again in recent seasons. Even with the new environment, Henry’s was one of the best.
With the news that he’ll be out six to 10 weeks, I had a couple of visceral reactions:
This is a terrible development for Henry and a sad day for fantasy.
Zero RB drafters are not rooting for injuries. I don’t have Henry on my teams, and I root hard for opposing defenses to stop him every week. Defenses not injuries.
I’m sure there are other examples in the interim, but this feels like Priest Holmes going down in Week 9 of 2004 when he came into the game averaging more than 28 PPG after two seasons of more than 400 points.[1]
Holmes was already 31 at the time and his injury was more devastating than Henry’s, but he was never the same again.
These are real people, and I’m hoping for a speedy recovery from Henry, a big run from him in the reality playoffs if the Titans make it that far, and an excellent 2022 season.
You want to win on the field.
Fantasy managers who drafted backs like Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, Ekeler, Najee Harris, Jonathan Taylor, Ezekiel Elliott, and Aaron Jones no longer get the chance to fight back and overcome Henry’s start. The Titans have the fourth-hardest schedule for RBs from Weeks 9 through 17, and other stars had the chance to get hot and catch up.
We’re also deprived of the chance to watch teams with backs like Swift, Cordarrelle Patterson, and Darrell Henderson battle Henry squads without the benefit of a Henry injury. It’s not so much the way excuses alter bragging rights,[2] but that it would simply mean more if those victories occurred with the stars healthy. It would feel different to win by overcoming a Henry squad, not by having that team knocked out of the race.
Some of these Henry squads will use the fast start to stay in contention.
Right now, a lot of our RV teams are doing extremely well with Saquon Barkley out. We’re hoping to have him back in time to make a true run, and perhaps with a player who has limited field exposure in the Overall Race. Our roster construction has given us that chance, and some Henry teams are no doubt in a similar boat … with all of those Henry points banked. They likely won’t be getting their star back, but that doesn’t mean they can’t compete. While it’s likely the case that Henry’s specific profile appealed slightly more to the Robust RB crowd, if you followed Henry with a lot of receiving firepower, you’ve got the necessary depth to continue battling at the flex positions through the bye weeks.
3 Players Who Will Determine Titles Over the Second Half of 2021
As we enter the second half of such a topsy-turvy NFL fantasy season, let’s take a look at three very different players – different positions, different expectations, different reasons for qualifying – who could win titles in 2021.
