Hall of Famer Terrell Davis: Why Derrick Henry Is Still the NFL’s Best RB

Rich asked a simple question. Terrell Davis tried to give a complicated answer. Rich was not having it.

The question: who is the best running back in the National Football League entering 2026? Davis started running the board. Christian McCaffrey. Derrick Henry. Saquon Barkley. James Cook off a monster year. Jonathan Taylor. Bijan and Jahmyr Gibbs, the two guys going first overall in fantasy drafts all across the country.

Then Davis tried to split the question in half.

"If you're looking at like best production back, that's different than the best back," he said. "Sometimes the best back is not always the most productive back."

Rich shut the door on that immediately. "You thought you'd get out of it by saying, oh, it's a little bit more nuanced, Rich," he said. "This is sports talk radio, TD. Come on now. There's no nuance here."

Davis relented, and once he did, the answer was not close.

"I'll say the best back, and I'll include sort of his body of work," Davis said. "It's still Derrick Henry."

The reasoning is what makes it hold up. Henry is one of the few backs, maybe the only one, where everyone in the stadium knows the ball is coming and it does not matter.

"They're going to run the ball, you know he's getting the ball, and pretty hard to stop," Davis said. He also took a shot at how Henry has been used lately, saying that for whatever reason Baltimore has not deployed him the way Davis expected the last couple of years.

The resume does the rest. What Henry did in high school, what he did in college, what he has done in the pros. A near 2,000-yard season, and another year at 1,900 that came close again.

"Doesn't appear to be slowing down in my opinion," Davis said. "I still like his style of running. I like the downhill, big back. He's big, but he's got really good top-end speed. It's hard to see Derrick Henry. I've never seen him get caught from behind."

Rich asked the Hall of Fame question. First ballot, right?

"Yep. Yep. Yep," Davis said. "No question about it." Rich agreed.

The more interesting football conversation came next, when Rich asked what changes for Gibbs now that he is RB1 without a doubt and there is no committee to lean on.

Davis called the split a hidden advantage that Gibbs no longer has. "He doesn't have a Batman and Robin connection there," Davis said. "The challenge is really being the guy every down. When you're splitting carries, and not only carries but touches, he's got a chance to rest a little bit in between those, knowing you got somebody else who can move the chain."

Now Gibbs might get 20 touches a game and every one of them is on him. That friendly competitiveness that was fun to watch is gone.

Davis thinks Gibbs can handle it, and he reached for two compliments that are not handed out casually. He sees Marshall Faulk in him. Then he reconsidered and landed somewhere else.

"Maybe it's more Chris Johnson," Davis said. "But he's got that kind of flare to him. I like the way he runs."