Derrick Henry Runs Into Third Place on the All-Time Rushing Touchdown List as Baltimore Buries Indianapolis 41-23
Three more scores took Henry past Marcus Allen to 125 career rushing touchdowns, behind only Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson, in Jesse Minter's first game as Ravens head coach.
Baltimore opened the season by handing Indianapolis a 41-23 defeat, and it did so by doing the least surprising thing available to it: giving the ball to Derrick Henry and letting the afternoon take its course. Twenty-four carries, 144 yards, three touchdowns. At this stage of his career the numbers have stopped being a story about a good game and become a story about accumulation, because three touchdowns on a Sunday in September moved him into third place on the all-time rushing touchdown list, past Marcus Allen's 123, at 125 career scores on the ground. Only Emmitt Smith, on 164, and LaDainian Tomlinson, on 145, are now ahead of him.
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It was also the first game of the Jesse Minter era in Baltimore, and a head-coaching debut rarely goes this smoothly. Lamar Jackson threw for 324 yards alongside Henry's afternoon on the ground, which is the version of this offense that opponents have spent years failing to solve: if the run is working, the pass has space, and if the pass is working, nobody has enough defenders left for the run. Indianapolis spent the afternoon choosing which of those two problems to lose to, and chose both in turn.
We were all on point, from the play-calling to the execution. I've been dialed in since OTA. We all have to stay locked in like this. I've got a ton of confidence in these guys that they can do that.— Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens quarterback
The moment that travelled furthest, though, was not a quote about execution. Jackson finished his postgame news conference, jumped off the podium and hugged his teammate on the way past — "Oh, King Henry, I love you." It is a small thing and it is the kind of small thing that tells you more about a locker room in September than any amount of talk about process. On the other side, Colts head coach Shane Steichen was refusing to isolate the failure: "Obviously, we've got to be better. We've got to coach better. We've got to play better. They had a ton of yards. We've got to be better there, but it's not just about one group. We weren't good enough."
Baltimore's opener by the numbers
Baltimore 41, Indianapolis 23.
24 carries, 144 rushing yards, three touchdowns.
Moved to third on the NFL's all-time rushing touchdown list with 125, passing Marcus Allen's 123. Only Emmitt Smith (164) and LaDainian Tomlinson (145) remain ahead.
324 passing yards.
The win came in Jesse Minter's first game as Baltimore's head coach.
Steichen's unwillingness to hand the blame to his defense alone is the correct read, and it is also the harder conversation. A 41-23 scoreline in which the opposing running back reaches a career milestone is not a coverage problem or a tackling problem in isolation; it is a team that was beaten in the areas where games are usually decided before anybody gets to be creative. For Baltimore the caution is simpler and more pleasant: Henry is 31 and the offense leaned on him for 24 carries in Week 1, which is a workload strategy that either ages very well or does not age at all. Every season of his career has been an argument that the usual curve does not apply to him, and every September since has invited the same question anyway. Nothing about one afternoon settles it, but a team that opens with 24 carries has told you which side of the argument it is betting on.
Third on the all-time rushing list, in September, on 24 carries — the record book is the easy part, and January is what the carries are actually for.
What Week 1 Actually Told Us
The run-pass balance. 144 rushing yards and 324 passing yards in the same game is the version of this offense nobody has reliably stopped.
Indianapolis' whole season. Steichen was right that it was not one group, which also means it is not one unfixable thing.
Henry's carry count. Twenty-four in Week 1 is a choice, and how Baltimore manages that number through the autumn matters more than any single afternoon's yardage.
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Sources: CBS Sports — Henry and Jackson lead Ravens past Colts, ESPN — Ravens 41-23 Colts recap, NFL.com — What We Learned from Sunday's games