Derrick Henry has compiled a laundry list of impressive stats over the course of his career but still doesn’t get the level of appreciation he deserves.
Most football fans would agree and acknowledge that Derrick Henry is one of the best running backs of his era.
The Baltimore bulldozer finished second in the NFL last season with 1,595 rushing yards (just 26 behind James Cook). The Ravens’ wrecking ball was second also in 2024 when he rushed for 1,921 yards — a whopping 465 more than the third-best total — and was eclipsed only by Saquon Barkley’s historic 2,000-yard season.
Henry has also led the league in rushing twice, has a 2,000-yard season of his own (2,027 in 2020) and is tied with the legendary Barry Sanders for the most career 1,500-yard rushing seasons with five.
Indeed, even the most casual fantasy football player knows Henry is one of the very best in the game — but he may still be underrated and underappreciated all the same.
Because what Henry is doing is not only at an elite level in historical context but is totally unparalleled in his own era.
Here’s the statistic that says it all — not only does Henry already rank 10th all-time with 13,018 rushing yards, but he is the only active running back in the top 40 of the career rushing yards list.
Of that top 40, only two others appeared in a game within the last five seasons: No. 5 Adrian Peterson (14,918 yards, finished in 2021) and No. 40 Ezekiel Elliott (9,130, finished in 2024).
Among active running backs, next on the all-time list are Barkley (No. 44, 8,356) and Josh Jacobs (No. 58, 7,803), who are both coming off down seasons in 2025 raising questions of decline.
Current NFL Active Career Rushing Leaders
| NFL Active Career Rushing Leaders | Historical Ranking | Yards | Years |
| 1. Derrick Henry | 10th | 13,018 | 2016- |
| 2. Saquon Barkley | 44th | 8,356 | 2018- |
| 3. Josh Jacobs | 58th | 7,803 | 2019- |
| 4. Aaron Jones | 60th | 7,626 | 2017- |
| 5. Jonathan Taylor | 62nd | 7,598 | 2020- |
| 6. Christian McCaffrey | 63rd | 7,589 | 2017- |
| 7. Joe Mixon | 65th | 7,428 | 2017- |
| 8. Nick Chubb | 67th | 7,349 | 2018- |
| 9. Alvin Kamara | 71st | 7,250 | 2017- |
| 10. Lamar Jackson | 89th | 6,522 | 2018- |
It gets even wilder when considering that within the top 200 all-time rushing leaders, only six are active RBs still anywhere close to their primes: Henry, Barkley (only 29 years old despite the dip last year), Jacobs (28 but not on the same tier as those RBs), No. 62 Jonathan Taylor (27, 7,598 yards), No. 63 Christian McCaffrey (30, 7,589 yards) and No. 176 D’Andre Swift (27, 4,775 yards) — only included for the purposes of showing the gap between relevant active running backs.
The point being, the NFL doesn’t produce running backs like Henry much anymore — those who maintain elite, high-volume production, durability and remain among the best at the position for a decade or more.
Putting Derrick Henry In Historical Context
To some degree, of course, there’s always been a limited number of such running backs by virtue of the nature of the position and the exceptional physical toll it incurs.
But look back through the years, and it’s hard to find instances of comparable separation like the gulf between Henry’s historical standing and that of his peers.
One was when Jim Brown finished out his Hall of Fame career in 1965 with a then-record 12,312 rushing yards — 2,589 (or 26.6%) more than the previous standard-bearer Joe Perry (9,723 from 1948-1963) and with no other active peers anywhere close to him his final two seasons.
After Brown, there was a glut of all-time greats in the 1970s into the 1980s climbing up the all-time rankings together with O.J. Simpson (1969-79, 11,236 yards), John Riggins (1971-85, 11,352) and Franco Harris (1972-84, 12,120) leading into Tony Dorsett (1977-88, 12,739) and of course Walter Payton (1975-87), who would be the first to break Brown’s hallowed record and finish with 16,276 yards.
That was the second significant gap where one running back was so far ahead of the field.
Looking Back At The Past
When Payton retired, he was 3,987 yards or 31.3% ahead of Dorsett, who would only last one more season himself. For that last season, Dorsett held a similarly sizable edge over any other active RB, but that was effectively the end of that era of star rushers.
But even that was a different overall picture. Even if Payton ended up outdistancing the field, he wasn’t the only top-40 rusher in history playing at the time or anything of the sort. Quite the opposite — five of the top six rushers of all-time at that point had just played out largely overlapping careers.
And since then …
From Ottis Anderson (1979-92, 10,273 yards) to Marcus Allen (1982-97, 12,243 yards), Eric Dickerson (1983-93, 13,259 yards), Thurman Thomas (1988-2000, 12,074 yards), Sanders (1989-98, 15,269), current record-holder Emmitt Smith (1990-2004, 18,355) and on and on, there’s been company in the climb up the rushing chart.
At the end of Smith’s career, he had 4,254 yards (30.2%) more than any other active running back, but Nos. 4-5 on the career list at that time were still active for another season in Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis.
So that’s not really the same as Henry’s current standing either.
Henry In A Class All His Own Right Now
There have been other blips since where one player outlasted his closest peer by a year or two, creating very briefly a sizeable gap among the active rushing leaders — like Adrian Peterson (2007-21, 5th all-time with 14,918 rushing yards) playing one extra season after Frank Gore (2005-20, 3rd all-time with 16,000 yards) retired.
But that too is beside our point here.
Henry isn’t heading into his final year or two. He’s still seemingly in his prime and already this far ahead of any other active running back historically — 34 spots, 4,662 yards and 55.8% ahead of Barkley.
To put it more simply, Henry is the singular active running back chasing history this season, next season and for potentially quite a while beyond that.
He is his own era, essentially.
Derrick Henry — A Unique Talent
And that makes sense because Henry is clearly a unique talent with his bruising 6-foot-2, 252-pound frame, who continues to rank among the league leaders in rushing attempts year after year without showing any of the normal signs of wear even now heading into his age-32 season.
Over the last seven years, starting in 2019, Henry has ranked 1st (303 carries), 1st (378), limited to 8 games by injury in 2021, 1st (349), 1st (280), 2nd (325) and 4th (307) in rushing attempts and has missed just one game over the last four seasons.
The only current players with multiple seasons of 300-plus carries are Taylor (3) and Jacobs (2).
All of this is to say, what Henry is doing at this point of his career is more special than most football fans may even realize.
He already holds the No. 1 and No. 7 spots on the list of best rushing seasons at age 30 or older.
If he stays healthy in 2026, he should move up to 6th on the all-time rushing list, needing a ho-hum 1,084-yard season to surpass Martin’s 14,101.
Then the march is on …
The Chase For A Place In History
Henry is 1,901 yards from passing Peterson (14,918) for 5th, 2,252 from passing Sanders (15,269) for 4th, 2,983 from passing Gore (16,000) for 3rd, 3,709 from passing Payton (16,726) for 2nd and needs 5,338 rushing yards to break Smith’s record of 18,355. It’s not inconceivable, even if conventional logic suggests Henry has to start slowing down at some point.
(Meanwhile, Henry is already 4th all-time in rushing touchdowns with 122, trailing Smith’s 164, LaDanian Tomlinson’s 145 and Allen’s 123.)
Per StatMuse.com, the all-time leaders in rushing yards after turning 32 years old are Gore (4,927), Riggins (4,530), Allen (3,999), John Henry Johnson in the 1960s (3,452) and Smith (3,189).
Whether he gets there or not, though, it will be a very long time before anyone else even comes within realistic reach.
Barkley’s injury setbacks have him too far off course even if he does rebound in 2026. Meanwhile, it’s simply too soon to project the careers of young talents like Cook, Bijan Robinson, Jahmyr Gibbs and others.
Really, after Henry, Taylor would be the next to potentially force the conversation. The Colts star has 7,598 rushing yards at just 27 years old, but he would need to be remarkably durable the rest of this career, which is a big ask for a player who has already missed 17 games due to injury in six years.
For now, the chase for history is Henry’s alone and that reality is not getting enough attention yet.
NFL All-Time Rushing Leaders
| Player | Yards | Years Active |
| 1. Emmitt Smith (H) | 18,355 | 1990-2004 |
| 2. Walter Payton (H) | 16,726 | 1975-1987 |
| 3. Frank Gore | 16,000 | 2005-2020 |
| 4. Barry Sanders (H) | 15,269 | 1989-1998 |
| 5. Adrian Peterson | 14,918 | 2007-2021 |
| 6. Curtis Martin (H) | 14,101 | 1995-2005 |
| 7. LaDanian Tomlinson (H) | 13,684 | 2001-2011 |
| 8. Jerome Bettis (H) | 13,662 | 1993-2005 |
| 9. Eric Dickerson (H) | 13,259 | 1983-1993 |
| 10. Derrick Henry | 13,018 | 2016- |
| (H) = Pro Football Hall of Famer |
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