There are 296 Reasons to Watch Derrick Henry’s 1st Game against the Titans

What if Rich told you Derrick Henry has never played against the Tennessee Titans? It sounds impossible, but it is true. Ravens versus Titans this week will be the first time Henry plays against Tennessee instead of for them.

Rich remembers when this was a nasty rivalry. When he came on the air at NFL Network in 2003, Ray Lewis and Eddie George would bark at each other and find each other on the field, "two massive human beings." Rich loved those Titans and Ravens games. "Obviously, that's a different story now."

The crew immediately had a number in mind. The single-game NFL rushing record is 296 yards, set by Adrian Peterson in 2007. One voice in the room wondered, "By halftime?" Another argued that 200 yards and two touchdowns felt like a low bar, calling it a lock.

What everyone really wants to know is whether Henry views this as a revenge game. The crew pointed out the Titans let him walk, and things in Tennessee have not gone well since. Someone brought up A.J. Brown's return against Tennessee, but Rich noted that was a different situation, since Brown was traded on draft day.

Henry's own answer, when asked whether the Titans made any attempt to keep him, was revealing. "No, they shipped me out," he said, before catching himself. "Well, no. I mean, I don't want to say it like that, but it's always love, but no, they didn't offer nothing at all."

Asked how that felt after everything he did for the franchise, Henry called it "bittersweet." "I think I knew the writing was on the wall throughout that season and they were ready to move on," he said. "Good things don't last forever, so it was time for me to find a new home and I knew what that home I wanted it to be and it was here, so God is good."

The crew zeroed in on that first answer. "Sometimes isn't your first answer always the truth?" one asked. "Most of the time, yeah," came the reply.

The consensus in the room was that Tennessee did Henry a favor. "Granted he hasn't won a Super Bowl or anything, but he's in a better situation," one member of the crew said.

Nobody could get over what the Titans once had. "They had Derrick Henry and A.J. Brown and Mike Vrabel and they're like, yeah, let's just break this up," one member said. They had a quarterback in Ryan Tannehill, too. Now, the crew noted, they are wondering if Cam Ward is the guy.

Rich was not ready to write Tennessee off for good. "At some point I think it's going to take an upturn," he said, because Ward is too talented and the coaches are too good.

But that is a problem for later. For now, there is one number Rich wants everyone to keep in mind when Henry takes the field against his old team. "Derrick Henry, what's that number again? 296?"